Bush Offers a Preview of His Reelection Campaign

Astute listeners during President Bush’s news conference Monday probably noticed that he used the phrase “more secure” a lot -- six times, in fact. For good measure, he added “safer” twice.

The repetition was no accident, of course. Although the president insisted -- as he had for months -- that he had not yet turned his attention to his upcoming reelection campaign, few in Washington took such assertions at face value.

So, few doubted that Bush, capitalizing on the capture of Saddam Hussein over the weekend, had called the news conference not only to showcase that success but also to preview his reelection campaign themes.

“In 2003, we have become a safer, more prosperous and better nation,” Bush said in his opening remarks.

That was a formula he repeated several times, sometimes with little variation. In one instance, he managed to dismiss the political equation in the same breath as he was laying out his campaign themes.

“Let me just tell you what the strategy is of this administration,” the president said in response to a question about withdrawing from Iraq. “Forget politics. The strategy that I’ve outlined in order to do my solemn duty ... is not only to keep the country more secure, but more prosperous, and a better country as well.”

Holding a year-end news conference to set the stage for the State of the Union address in January and the start of the campaign season is a well-known White House tactic, said Martha Joynt Kumar, an expert on White House communications strategies.

The idea, she said, is to wait until Congress has left for the holidays and then to wrap up the year in your own language while your rivals are scattered around the country. Of course, taking advantage of a huge foreign-policy victory is a good idea too.

“This was a perfect moment for him to do this,” Kumar said.

For the president, a news conference might not have seemed to be the best platform for a campaign dress rehearsal.

Bush has been less comfortable with full-dress news conferences than his predecessors, including his father. Monday’s session was only his 11th formal news conference as president. By comparison, at this stage in their terms, former President Clinton had held 37 and the elder President Bush had held 70.

But on Monday, after a stiff start, the president warmed up and appeared more comfortable with the format and less defensive with his answers than in previous news conferences. And he has had three years of practice.

“He’s well past his freshman year,” said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the centrist Brookings Institution. “He’s going into his senior year, and he’s learned a few things.”

Bush opened with a statement about his achievements in the last year, including passage of a Medicare reform bill and another round of tax cuts. In question after question, he worked in his precooked themes and phrases.

In addition to suggesting that he had made the country “more secure,” Bush also reminded people why. Four times he mentioned the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I’ve got a solemn duty to do everything I can to protect the American people,” the president said in response to a question about whether he would speed up the withdrawal of troops from Iraq before next November’s election. “I will never forget the lessons of September the 11th, 2001.”

He said he loved being president: “I have come to realize this job is a magnificent job because you have a chance to use the position of the United States of America to achieve peace and freedom.”

He also portrayed himself as a leader and decision-maker, someone who sets strategy and lets able deputies put it into action. “I am comfortable delegating the awesome responsibilities of -- in this administration’s case -- war two times, to incredibly capable and brave people,” Bush said.

In a sign that the campaign wasn’t completely off the radar, Bush said at one point, “I look forward to making my case to the American people about why America is more secure today based upon the decisions that I’ve made.” He didn’t offer much in the way of a forward-looking agenda -- only repeating his familiar pleas for an energy bill and medical liability reform -- but no one expected the president to heap much onto his plate during an election year.

Karlyn H. Bowman, a political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says polls still show a significant amount of national anxiety over terrorism, depending on the way the subject is phrased. So it’s no wonder that Bush took pains to suggest that he was making the country more secure.

“That is going to be an important aspect of the national security equation as voters go into the voting booth,” Bowman said. In this sense, repetition works for the president. “You have to hope that it will have some self-fulfilling propensity,” Bowman said.

The one thing Bush mentioned several times, but did not explain was his desire to make the country a “better nation.” Perhaps it was a new iteration of his agenda of “compassionate conservatism.” Apparently, voters will need to tune in on Jan. 20 to the State of the Union address to find out.

In the final analysis, Bush’s apparent goal in the news conference was to look, sound like -- and be -- the president. And to do it on a day when his leadership was not in question.

“Clearly, it was a victory lap,” said Hess. “But overall, he reminds us that if you want to run for president, the White House is a great place to do it from.”