Bush Sees Bicycle Built for Two

President Bush, who recently took up mountain biking, says he and cyclist Lance Armstrong have more in common than two wheels.

“He’s going to win and I’m going to win,” Bush told reporters Friday as he rooted for fellow Texan Armstrong while watching coverage of the Tour de France aboard Air Force One. Armstrong, in second place overall in the tour, is trying to be the first six-time winner of the grueling European road race.

Whether it’s cyclists in France or Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry in the U.S., “there’s no need to worry about either race anymore,” Bush told Associated Press, en route to campaign stops in battleground states West Virginia and Florida.

*

Special Accommodation

He just might be one of the most important attendees to the Democratic National Convention -- and he’s not even housebroken.

Swifty, the Democrats’ official donkey delegate, will be traveling about 1,000 miles north from his home in rural Georgia.

The donkey was initially too much of a logistical hassle for officials trying to keep the event’s security tight. But smooth talking on the part of the Kerry campaign earned Swifty a ticket to the big show -- July 26-29 in Boston -- and lodging in Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo.

The zoo’s not playing political favorites -- a GOP elephant would be welcome too, said spokeswoman Jo Anne Baxter.

*

Who’s Counting?

73.86%: Bush’s share of the vote in a poll of more than 3,000 teenagers gathered in Chicago for a conference of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (formerly Future Homemakers of America). The teens have accurately predicted every election since Jimmy Carter’s victory in 1976.

*

Compiled from staff, Web and wire reports by Times staff researcher Susannah Rosenblatt.