Free Republic

DETROIT - Robert Teeter, an influential Republican pollster who worked in several presidential races and was a longtime member of former President Bush (news - web sites)'s campaign brain trust, has died after a battle with cancer. He was 65. Teeter died Sunday night at his home in Ann Arbor, his company said Monday. Teeter played an important role in American politics over the last 30 years, working with Republican presidents beginning with Richard Nixon and serving as national chairman for Bush's unsuccessful 1992 re-election campaign. He also handled polling for Bush in his 1980 presidential run and was a...

WASHINGTON, May 18 — The ferocity of the White House counterattack this week, when confronted by criticism that President Bush and his top advisers knew more than the public about hijacking threats before Sept. 11, is a sure sign that they recognize the political danger should Democrats press the issue through the coming election campaign. Mr. Bush's political team appeared to sense that taking the question to the voters might backfire on the Democrats, with the president, and by implication his party, suffering no lasting political damage from the disclosures of the past week. The central question is where the...