Security, Politics on Bush N.Y. Agenda

President Bush returned to Manhattan on Wednesday, but this time fighting terrorism wasn’t the only type of warfare he had in mind.

After touring the New York Police Department’s command center, the president delivered a passionate speech on homeland security to hundreds of police officers and fire and rescue workers crammed into a midtown hotel ballroom. It was part of his ongoing effort to tout his budget proposals.

Then Bush’s schedule turned overtly political as he attended two fund-raisers for Gov. George Pataki--the first a $15,000-per-person reception at the Upper East Side townhouse of New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Bush’s appearances for Pataki represented only the second time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that he has attended political fund-raisers, reflecting his reluctance to engage in direct partisan activities while he leads a nation at war.

But the aid the president provided Pataki’s reelection bid also heralded a distinct shift, one that could generate criticism directed not at his performance as commander in chief but at his role as the GOP’s fund-raiser in chief.

With the approach of elections in which control of Congress hangs in the balance, both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are stepping up their efforts to elect Republicans. It is a tricky balancing act at a time when the administration is still prosecuting the war on terrorism.

Cheney campaigned Wednesday in Evansville, Ind., for Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.), and today is scheduled to do the same for Rep. Anne M. Northup (R-Ky.).

In the next eight months, Bush is slated for about 40 political events around the country and Cheney about 60, aides say. Until Wednesday, the president had attended only one post-September fund-raiser--for his brother Jeb, who is seeking a second term as Florida governor.

Members of the president’s Cabinet also are expected to hit the campaign trail later this year, according to White House and Republican Party officials.

“I think it’s fair to say that, as this election year begins, the president will increasingly be helpful to Republican candidates at the state level [and] the federal level,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said this week.

On Monday, Bush is scheduled to attend a fund-raiser in Milwaukee for Gov. Scott McCallum.

In some of his recent travels around the country to promote the counter-terrorism campaign and his domestic priorities, Bush also has quietly taken time out to do some spadework for his expected reelection bid in 2004. After a public appearance in East Moline, Ill., last month, for instance, Bush met privately with supporters from throughout the region.

Bush’s itinerary also has taken him to many states that proved critical battlegrounds in the much-disputed 2000 presidential election, such as Oregon, West Virginia, Florida and Pennsylvania.

At the second fund-raiser for Pataki on Wednesday night--a $1,500-per-person affair--Bush delivered a speech devoid of hard-edged political rhetoric.

He extolled the New York governor, who is seeking a third term. He told the crowd at a hotel ballroom that Pataki is “a governor whose phone calls will be returned from the White House.”

But for the most part, Bush’s remarks were all but indistinguishable from the dozens of war-related speeches he has delivered since Sept. 11.

The president’s political strategy, at least for now, appears to be one of arousing and sustaining patriotism--and then hoping such feelings wash over to Republican candidates.

Wednesday’s trip marked Bush’s fifth to New York since Sept. 11, and he devoted his public appearances to highlighting the $3.5 billion he proposed in his 2003 budget for firefighters, police and rescue squads. Bush said his request would increase federal funding for these local units by more than 1,000%. He also renewed the pledge he made days after Sept. 11 that Washington will provide $20 billion to help New York recover from the attacks.

Congress appropriated $10.7 billion late last year. And administration officials stressed at the time--as Bush did Wednesday--that ultimately the whole amount will be furnished. The president also made clear that money Congress has agreed to provide to relatives of Sept. 11 victims would not be counted against the $20-billion package, as White House Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. had suggested earlier this week.

“Mitch understands my pledge,” Bush told reporters. “When I said $20 billion, I meant $20 billion.”

In his tour of the NYPD command center in lower Manhattan, just blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood, and in his subsequent speech, the president lavished praise upon those who he now routinely refers to as the nation’s “first responders” to emergencies.