Bush Back on Campaign Trail

After a weeklong hiatus at his Texas ranch, President Bush returns to the campaign trail today, with a vengeance.

He will attend three rallies in New Mexico, and then is scheduled to campaign every day through next Thursday, when he is to deliver his nomination acceptance speech in New York. And he plans to keep going -- with little if any letup -- until the Nov. 2 election.

According to White House and campaign officials, Bush’s “Moving America Forward: America’s Heart and Soul” tour will take him to eight closely contested states before he arrives at Madison Square Garden in New York, site of the Republican National Convention.

Along the way, the president is to be joined by several convention speakers, including former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; Sen. Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat who has endorsed Bush; Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), his rival for the GOP nomination in 2000.

At the ranch, Bush has hosted a small army of aides, including confidant Karen Hughes, chief speechwriter Michael Gerson, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and strategist Karl Rove.

Hughes, who was White House counselor before returning to her Austin home in 2002, has resumed her position as Bush’s traveling companion and closest advisor. At the ranch, she and Gerson have been working with the president on his convention acceptance speech.

In that speech, aides said, Bush planned to lay out his agenda for a second term.

Today in New Mexico, Bush will be joined in Las Cruces, Farmington and Albuquerque by Giuliani, who is to address the GOP convention Monday night. The president will return to the White House late tonight. Accompanied on Friday by Miller, who will give the convention’s keynote speech Wednesday night, the president will attend a late-afternoon rally in Miami before returning to Washington.

On Saturday, Bush will fly to Ohio. There, he plans to board a campaign bus and travel from Troy to Maumee to Lima. On Sunday, he will travel to Wheeling, W. Va., for a rally in a state that traditionally backs Democratic presidential candidates but sided with Bush in 2000.

Bush on Monday will campaign in Nashua, N.H., with Romney, the Republican chief executive of Massachusetts, home state of the president’s Democratic opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry. After spending the night in Detroit, Bush will appear Tuesday in Nashville and Alleman, Iowa, with McCain at his side. McCain will be joining Bush after giving the featured speech to the GOP convention Monday night.

On Wednesday, Bush will speak to supporters in Columbus, Ohio, before arriving in New York. That evening, he is to be formally nominated.

Bush will leave New York immediately after his acceptance speech Thursday night, heading for Pennsylvania.