Bush feels the heat as rural heartland goes cool

Telegraph UK ^ | 10/26/04 | Alec Russel

[pickemuphere]

President George W Bush campaigned up and down a small rural stretch of the heartland yesterday, desperately seeking to shore up his position in a once safe region where Republicans are registering the first prickles of concern about his record - and his chances.

With just a week to go before voting, Mr Bush focused his fire on Wisconsin and Iowa, two mid-western states that have become pivotal to his chances. He lost both narrowly to Al Gore in 2000 but now badly needs to win them as an insurance policy, given the state of play in Ohio and Florida, two of the three key swing states, where he is in a dead heat with his rival.

Sitting on the banks of the Mississippi, the focus of a blitz of campaigning by the two presidential candidates, two Republican businessmen in their mid-30s aired the anxieties that go to the heart of jitters among Bush supporters.

"People are worried about Iraq," said Eric Dragne, in a display of candour remarkable in a partisan climate that tends to allow for no self-doubt on either side. "Many people here know people who have lost their lives."

[budman_2001]

[joesnuffy]

Horse Hockey...

This is where I live...go over to the Mississippi to Prairie du Chien....Bush signs everywhere
hardly a Kerry sign...

Today in Richland Center the audience went wild...GW connects with rural folks in a way Kerry never could ...in spite of his now infamous Eddie Bauer gentile man's soft 'Barn Coat' he would have been better off wearing 'ole crusty'

When GW spoke today it was like rural Texas and rural Wisconsin were kin folk....when he talked there was a natural unfeigned connection between Texas and Wisconsin...

The Prez and the First Lady just strike resonant cords in regular American's hearts....

a resonance that a presumptuous pompous city slicker like Kerry could never understand because he just doesn't have the soul that GW and Laura Bush have...

Kerry cannot get past his disdain for common folks...and he wears it on his face...he can't act his way to it...he cant lie his way to it...it simply isn't in him...

imo

[sport]

Where is the barf alert?

[Deb]

What a pathetic phony you are.

[lainde]

I'm glad others have noticed the shift. Guess i'm just going to have to rely on MadIvan's reports.

[TheDon]

LOL! I'm impressed by the crowds he's drawing.

Kerry = Mondale II

[madison10]

I'm jealous. Work sure gets in the way sometimes.

[kingattax]

could be he is trying to make the President spend time in

florida. tony snow is not a political newbie....all the

reliable polls show a solid lead. Bush will win florida.

[OKIEDOC]

Isn't this the same news rag that trashed Bush and called for his assination?

[Finalapproach29er]

Hawaii too.