Posted on 08/12/2004 10:29:03 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
In some ways, Laura Bush is the White House's stealth campaigner.
When her motorcade winds its way through the streets of Washington to Andrews Air Force Base, it includes no limousine and sometimes even stops at red lights. In fact, perhaps the only way a passing driver might know that the first lady is inside one of the black S.U.V.'s is the team of Secret Service agents sitting backward in an S.U.V. near hers, staring vigilantly out an open back window.
On the road, meanwhile, her campaigning has generated far fewer headlines than that of her husband's other main surrogate, Vice President Dick Cheney.
But as Mrs. Bush begins several weeks of solo barnstorming in states crucial for her husband's re-election, she is becoming an increasingly visible and effective part of White House strategy, largely because she is seen as someone above the rough-and-tumble of the political fray.
In the last four months, she has been steadily raising her profile, projecting an image much more assertive and assured than she did during the 2000 campaign. She has joked with Jay Leno, made the morning-news-show circuit and appeared in Internet campaign commercials. She has also proved to be a formidable fund-raiser, generating $10 million for the campaign this year alone in speaking at more than a dozen events from Maine to Missouri.
And less than three weeks from now, in what will undoubtedly be her most important public moment of the 2004 campaign, she will give one of the prime-time speeches at the Republican National Convention in New York. (Her every handshake, smile and speech on the campaign trail are being recorded for a videotape that will be shown as she is introduced at Madison Square Garden.)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
My friend was chosen to be her personal assistant down at the Pfister and actually spent some time with her. She is everything she appears to be -- just lovely and genuine.
Please click on the link for my quotes.
I know a bunch of people here who are old friends with the Bushes and they all adore Laura. They say she is the same in person as on TV, nice and friendly. Compare that to Teresa Heinz.... Icy and Fiendish!
Laura is the exact oposite of the Afro-American lady John kerry carries around. Poised, good-looking,intelligent,
Polite a real class act. She treats people like people , not like servants.
Mrs. Bush's convention speech will be so much better than that of her snob opponent that she will win some voters for her husband.
Heaven forbid Mr Bush or Mr Cheney should criticize Teresa. The other side would be howling about the personal attacks from these mean men.... But let Laura do it! :)
I am so pleased for you! Nice quotes. You are a lady as is the First Lady. I was thinking of you all day Tuesday. lol
Sorry. I thought the NYT was one that needed to be excerpted.
Here you go...remainder of story for those who are "click averse"...
...Mrs. Bush, 57, makes little secret of the fact that while she has no problem with public speaking, political campaigning is not one of her favorite pursuits. But ever since giving her first stump speech of the year, at Las Vegas in May, she has skillfully turned her lack of political polish to her advantage.
True, she reads from prepared remarks in the careful manner of the schoolteacher she used to be, rarely varying tone or volume even when the speech seems to call for doing so and her words are eliciting cheers.
But she often makes prolonged eye contact with individual members of her audience, and when she loses her place in the speech, which does not happen often, she smiles and forges resolutely ahead, sending a kind of tacit "Y'all understand I'm not a politician" message to her listeners. Then she often spends more time than her handlers would like shaking hands, posing for pictures and talking to supporters.
"What she does up there is exude the love she has for her husband and the respect she has for him," said Bette Duncan, a co-owner of an electronics manufacturing company, who came to hear the first lady speak in Grafton, Wis. "And that's refreshing in politics. It's not all 'me, me, me.' Laura is just a great woman."
Mrs. Duncan paused, and then added: "I really shouldn't call her Laura. She's the first lady."
In her busiest campaign swing so far - six states packed into Monday and Tuesday - Mrs. Bush's main target was women, who polls show do not support her husband in the same numbers as men.
She is clearly aware of her image as a first lady who has not been involved in policy making or political infighting, and - except for comments on Monday in support of the president's policy on stem-cell research - she assiduously avoids contentious issues, never referring to her husband's opponent.
Instead, she delivered reliable applause lines this week to groups of small-business-owning women in Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota, reminding them that a woman, Condoleezza Rice, advised her husband on foreign policy and another, Margaret Spellings, advised him on domestic policy.
"This means that in the White House, women are in charge of everything abroad and everything at home," she said, breaking into a smile, "which sounds just about right to me."
She also assures women that Mr. Bush feels strongly about equal opportunity.
"And he has three strong women at home who won't let him forget it," she said of herself and their twin daughters.
Mrs. Bush's team carefully picks campaign stops that will bolster her wholesome, nonpolitician image, like a quilting shop in Minnesota or a flag store in North Toledo where she made an unannounced visit on Monday, hugging the owner, Howard Pinkley, and buying a $5.95 copy of a flag etiquette book called "Honor Our Flag."
While the first lady professes to be unpracticed in politics, she is clearly aware of what she can accomplish in campaigning. In a short interview on her plane as she returned to Washington at the end of the six-state trip, a reporter asked her what she hoped to achieve in speaking mostly to audiences of local Republican volunteers and other Bush supporters.
"Obviously I go to get in the news, to be on television and in the newspapers," she said, though adding that she also hoped she was "able to get out a message that's not always out in the media."
"I wouldn't say it was critical to the re-election effort," she said, "but I certainly want to do everything I can do to help him be re-elected."
She said that despite the spoken prenuptial agreement, often retold, in which Mr. Bush promised he would never force her to give a campaign speech, she had helped him campaign almost since the beginning.
"It's always really been more of a joke," she said of the agreement. "I gave speeches all the time when George was governor."
Mrs. Bush said she was often frustrated by being portrayed in the news media as shy and retiring, a reluctant speaker, someone who knows little about her husband's policies.
"Even when I do speak about policy," she said, her voice hoarse from its recent workout, "it's still sort of disregarded, and I think it's just a stereotype."
But few of her admirers seem to focus much on her message either. They appear happy simply to see her in person and find that she does not act much like a politician.
"I couldn't even get a good picture of her," Mrs. Duncan said in Grafton. "She's such a gracious Southern lady she doesn't even mug for the cameras. Now how about that?"
That is what my friend said was her experience when she greeted her at the hotel. And she was genuinely grateful for everything that was done for her. A real class act!
I can't imagine her in a shouting match at Little America and then storming off to take a separate suite!
Did you catch the hatchet job Gail Sheehy did last night on Hardball?
[paraphrased]
Because Barbara Bush is so assertive, George needed a wife who would be subservient (or some such nonsense)
She has Stepford characteristics.
She should not have spoken on an issue she knew nothing about (I came in at the end of that one--may have been Mrs. Bush's speech on stem cell research research, which I thought was wonderful. She spoke against giving false hope to those who think a cure might be just around the corner)
A First Lady ping!
Absolutely positive...and wonderful article......and YOU were there and quoted!!!!!!!!!! (I'm so jealous. HaHa) Thanks for posting this.
I love this: "I couldn't even get a good picture of her," Mrs. Duncan said in Grafton. "She's such a gracious Southern lady she doesn't even mug for the cameras. Now how about that?"
Thank you for the ping. I had seen the title but not clicked it.
Your home page says it all very succinctly. =)
That was really what I said. I was so frustrated because she gave a wonderful speech, but she did not linger over the applause lines and flash a big smile. When she smiled, she often looked down -- like Lady Di did when she was first tapped tobe the Princess of Wales. It was charming, but difficult to photograph.
When I reviewd the pictures, however, I had a worse problem -- the tent was too dark and the lighting all wrong for my little camera. :(
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