CAMPAIGN AS THEATER : President Looks Every Bit the Part : From the White House lawn to small-town streets, appearance is key element of Bush’s campaign.

It is as inconsequential an episode as this presidential season will see, as well as one of its most telling. It lasted less than a minute by the clock, but a lifetime went into its preparation. And in its own small way, it speaks to the heart of George Bush’s campaign.

The time is a little after 6 on a weekday evening, the scene the back lawn of the White House. A television cameraman yells “incoming” and a large helicopter appears, hovering above the trees like an oversized horror movie insect bloated from too much radiation. It lands, a Marine in full dress uniform appears out of a side exit to open the main door, and the show begins.

Barbara and George Bush, just back from a tour of Hurricane Andrew’s devastation, step lightly off the chopper. As if on cue, a pair of dogs rush to meet them, and Barbara stops to pet them without breaking stride. The President is right behind her, his suit perfectly fitted, his shoes with an enviable shine. They walk unhurriedly toward the White House door, smiling and waving easily to both media and staff, totally at ease in the midst of all the toys of power.

This performance, honed by years of doing everything for public effect, is such a picture of casual perfection, like a drop of water falling off a leaf, as to be almost breathtaking. Democrats may snipe at Bush’s performance in the Oval Office, but after decades in the wings and four years on the job, there can be no doubt that he has got playing the President down absolutely pat.

Even though pundits and advisers grumble about the need for the President to appear more substantial, to grapple with issues in a forthright manner, a week spent with him on the campaign trail leaves no doubt that that is only part of the story. In a contest where the importance of image cannot be overstated, where “how did it play” is the question on everyone’s lips, the President’s biggest asset remains that, whether waving to crowds or taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves, he looks the part and he knows it.

And people want to see him. In hot, dusty West Texas, on the motorcade route from the military airport in Lubbock to a rally in nearby Shallowater, people parked plastic lawn chairs on the side of the road, placed American flags in their children’s tiny fists and waited and waited in the intense sun. One man at a dusty crossroads leaped on the running board of his car and vigorously saluted as the White House press bus roared past, and even through the glass one could feel the excitement, the eager anticipation.

A few days later, in Hendersonville, N.C., the weather had flip-flopped but the passion was the same. Hundreds of people waited patiently for more than an hour in heavy rains for the President’s arrival, placing children on their shoulders, standing in the downpour even blocks away from the site, content with the President’s voice over loudspeakers even if they couldn’t see his face. One man, who’d brought his mother, wife and two toddlers along with him, explained it all in a telling four-word phrase that Republicans are counting on, a mantra never heard in sophisticated urban circles: “respect for the office.”

But respect only goes so far, and although people very much want to see the President, they don’t necessarily want to vote for him ( undecided was the word on everyone’s lips) or even hear what he has to say. To a great extent, it’s his celebrity, not his politics, that seems to be the lure, and the appearance of someone so prominent and so powerful invariably draws all kinds of lesser planets into his orbit.

There are the congressional candidates whom the President dutifully introduces at the start of every speech, the scattering of card-carrying Clinton-Gore supporters who are so shocked not to be struck dead for their impudence that they rarely do more than quietly wave their signs, and the inevitable special interest groups, like the representatives of the South Dakota Soybean Assn. who showed up at the President’s stop at Humboldt, S.D., in a vehicle powered by a soybean fuel in the vague hope of “getting a little exposure.”

Whatever their reasons for being there, no one gets to leave without hearing the President speak, which is an experience that is more intriguing than galvanizing. Although he lacks the light touch, tends to stumble with words and even mangles his own punch lines (wanting to accuse Bill Clinton of having “straddle sores” from being on both sides of the free trade issue, he ended up giving the governor the more pedestrian “saddle sores”), he still remains a more capable speaker than these weaknesses would have you expect.

The problem is that only certain parts of his speeches seem to interest the President. When he has to go into policy specifics on an issue, for instance, he not only apologizes in advance to the audience (“I hope you’ll bear with me, I want to just take a few minutes to talk to you about a serious matter” is a typical phrase), he tends to sound as if he’s on emotionally disconnected automatic pilot while he runs through facts and figures.

More to Bush’s liking are the zingers he can hurl like so many poison darts; “that gridlock Congress” appears to be his current favorite, said in the manner of “those pesky kids” or “that darn cat.” And he is happiest of all pounding out the old-fashioned emotional hit lines that he knows will get the crowd’s blood flowing. In Fredericksburg, Va., he roared: “I am optimistic about this country” and the crowd roared back. Statistics, clearly, are not this much fun.

As interesting, if not more so, than the President’s speeches are the locales that are chosen to deliver them in. Given that television news is visually driven, the Bush campaign expends considerable effort searching out the ideal backdrop for whatever specific message the President is going to deliver that day. When their man was to sign a bill helping to ease credit for small businesses, for instance, he did not do it in his office, but took a quick helicopter ride some 50 miles to Fredericksburg, where he could sign away on a picturesque street in front of a vintage 1950s pharmacy, complete with a lunch counter. Never mind that the town and its mayor turn out to be of the Democratic persuasion. “Hey, this’ll make nice pictures on the national news” explained local businessman Rodger Provo. “Isn’t that what it’s about today?”

Sometimes the search for backdrop can seem to misfire, as when the President delivered a speech on health care at a cholesterol-heavy Octoberfest just outside of Cleveland, where a calorie-unconscious audience consumed enough bratwurst, strudel and beer to keep a moderate-size coronary unit in business. And sometimes it can involve so much travel that the White House press corps openly pines for President Reagan, who apparently never did in one day what could comfortably be fit into two.

On the Wednesday before Labor Day, for instance, the President spent eight hours in the air, traveling more than 3,200 miles to a series of carefully selected stage sets, the better to present messages that could just as easily have been delivered in Washington. In Humboldt, S.D., he commandeered the farm of a reluctant Jeff Kapperman, who introduced himself by saying: “This is my house you’re making a mess of,” to talk about wheat export subsidies. Never mind that Kapperman is (once again) a Democrat, never mind that the crowd was so small that anyone who looked vaguely liked a farmer was immediately surrounded by probing members of the press. The photos of the President among the hay bales looked great, and in fact dutifully appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Washington Post the next morning. Mission accomplished.

The President’s last stop of the day was even more artificial. He went to a General Dynamics facility in Ft. Worth, nominally to announce the sale of 150 F-16s to Taiwan. But the news had been leaked in advance, giving the General Dynamics people time to make up large and colorful buttons for its employees to wear, applauding the transaction Bush was supposedly showing up to announce. But the pictures, the pictures were great.

This air of unreality frequently hangs over the campaign, due not just to the nature of modern politics but also in considerable part to the bubble-like, enviably efficient security cocoon the President must travel in to ensure his physical safety. Covering him can rapidly seem like trying to report on a rumor, a phantom, maybe even the Wizard of Oz, trying to be all things to all people as the election draws nearer.

For the greatest irony of all is that the President is out there trying to connect with ordinary Americans while leading a closeted and cosseted existence that could not be further removed from day-to-day life.

His motorcades pass through an America of bucolic farms and neat and clean single family homes; if there is a bad side of town, he never sees it. If he does experience anything unpleasant, be it hurricane damage or riot aftermath, it is by definition an aberration. Seeing what he sees, one would be hard pressed not to agree that there is nothing wrong with this country that four more years wouldn’t cure very nicely indeed.