POLITICAL BRIEFING

BUSH’S CHALLENGE: Despite the political boost President Bush received from last week’s Republican Convention, key GOP strategists retain a sober sense of the magnitude of the electoral task confronting him. . . . Although heartened by poll results showing Bush closing on Clinton, they fear that dissatisfaction with the nation’s direction and the President’s performance will remain substantial right through Election Day. And that looms as an enormous obstacle to Bush’s reelection, if history is any guide. In the last 40 years, no President without a job approval rating of at least 50% has won reelection. . . . “We are just going to have to break the historical precedents,” one campaign adviser said. “Earlier in the year, we thought we had to get Bush’s approval back to the mid-50s to win; we’ve pretty much given up on that one.”