On the economy, Bush's approach is to acknowledge that his term has been marked by "hard times" but that "we've overcome it because of well-timed tax cuts."
If last week's lines are a reminder that Bush can be a skilled political performer, the year has also produced reminders that he can be the opposite. The State of the Union address in January did little to expand Bush's support or frame his reelection themes, polls afterward showed. Some high-profile news conferences and interviews showed Bush stumbling to get off the defensive.
Such middling efforts and missed opportunities have helped place Bush in his current predicament, running essentially even with Kerry and well behind the public approval ratings scored by other recent presidents who succeeded in reelection efforts. For all these troubles, however, the week showed that Bush has not let a hangdog air settle over his campaign, as it did over such losing efforts as his father's 1992 reelection effort or Republican Robert J. Dole's challenge to President Bill Clinton in 1996.
To the contrary, Bush was drawing appreciative crowds -- many of whom, judging by the signs they carried and questions they asked, were the Christian conservatives whom the president and his political aides have steadfastly courted. For the most part, Bush on the stump touches on the cultural issues important to these voters using indirect language rather than addressing specific policy controversies, such as his opposition to abortion, and support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and for federal restrictions on stem cell research.
Here in Sioux City, for instance, Bush said "we stand for institutions like marriage and family," and also for "a culture of life, in which every person matters and every person counts."
"We stand for judges who faithfully interpret the law, instead of legislating from the bench," he said.
While Bush's style sounds conversational, his speeches, made with only occasional glances at notes, are increasingly practiced, with the same stories and arguments appearing in the same places.
Still, there are occasional variations. In one telling of his riff about the majesty of the Oval Office, he notes that it leaves any visitor speechless -- except for "my mother, who walked in and continued to tell me what to do."
That line was in Las Vegas. In Florida, however, he made the same point but said that the Oval Office is so powerful "it's the kind of place where my mother walks in and feels so overwhelmed, she won't tell me what to do."
