The Red-State Revue, Starring G.W. Bush
On Familiar Ground, President Is Energized

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 4, 2006

SPRINGFIELD, Mo., Nov. 3 -- The Gatlin Brothers finished singing, and Larry Gatlin took the microphone to warm up the crowd for his old friend from West Texas. A little red meat never hurt a few days before an election. "I tell ya what," Gatlin told thousands of cheering Republicans, "we're gonna git Osama!"

Instead of Special Forces, though, out onto the stage bounded Louie the Cardinal and Fetch the Dog, presumably to keep the audience entertained for a few more minutes rather than to hunt down the world's most dangerous terrorist. After the Springfield Cardinals mascots finished handing out T-shirts, the loudspeakers blasted out that well-known Republican anthem "We're Not Gonna Take It," by Twisted Sister.

As he crisscrosses Red America in the last campaign that will directly affect his administration, President Bush isn't gonna take it either, or at least he isn't gonna take it lying down. With pollsters and pundits declaring his Republican Party all but out of power in the House and in danger of losing the Senate in Tuesday's elections, Bush has embarked on a final 10-state blitz to save his congressional majorities -- and essentially the remainder of his presidency.

He has shucked the coat and tie for shirtsleeves and slipped a little more drawl into his voice as he hits mainly conservative, rural communities. "It's good to be in a part of the country where the cowboy hats outnumber the ties," Bush told thousands of supporters in Billings, Mont., on Thursday, squeezing in a rally just two days before the MetraPark Arena's scheduled "Spay-Neuter Clinic."

And he seems fired up by flag-waving crowds that greet him as a rock star, with young women screaming for him to come shake hands, even if elitists in Washington have written him off. He would love nothing more than to prove all the prog-naw-sti-ka-tors and phil-ah-suh-phi-zers wrong, and score another against-the-odds victory.

"That's not the first time they've been forecasting elections," Bush said here in a line that has become a favorite in recent days. "You might remember in 2004, some of the folks in Washington listened to the prognosticators and they started picking out their offices in the West Wing. And then it turned out the people went to the polls, and the movers weren't needed."

So he jets to Montana, Nevada, Missouri, Iowa and the dwindling number of places that will have him in a possibly quixotic quest to repeat history, warning the Republican faithful that, no matter how much they deny it, Democrats will raise their taxes and lose the battle against terrorists. It is a message that resonates in the partisan audiences that hear it.

"Tell it like it is!" one man called out here.

"Attaboy, George!" another yelled.

If Bush is worried, he does not let on. Nor does his top strategist, Karl Rove, who, just as he did in the final stretch before the 2004 election, has made a point in the past few days of appearing jovial and carefree. Wearing a Cheshire cat grin and the same green tie with greyhounds two days in a row, he playfully teased the traveling media, mocking David Gregory's pocket handkerchief and stuffing pieces of white paper in the jacket pockets of other reporters so they would match the NBC correspondent.

Though he did not offer any commentary on the elections, in a conference call with business executives this week Rove outlined five reasons he thinks Republicans will hold Congress, according to a participant: incumbency, more money, better get-out-the-vote organization, the intensity of GOP voters and favorable territory where competitive races are being fought out.

Rove said he was particularly worried about three or four House seats in Indiana and House seats in New York for which top-of-the-ticket Democrats are headed for huge victories, according to the participant. But Rove was optimistic about holding the Florida seat of Republican Mark Foley, who resigned amid a House page scandal, and disparaged Democratic turnout efforts as "sporadic and episodic."

For Bush's final campaign swing, Rove tapped powerful presidential symbols. Bush's arrival for a Thursday rally at the airport in Elko, Nev., was choreographed so the crowd on the tarmac cheered as Air Force One swooped out of the sky to heroic theme music from the movie "Top Gun." When the familiar blue-and-white Boeing 747-200B rolled right up to the rally, the loudspeakers switched to the soundtrack from the film "Air Force One." All that was missing was Harrison Ford.

Still, symbolism works for and against politicians. Bush was the first sitting president to visit Elko since 1932, when Herbert Hoover stopped there the day before being swept out of office by Franklin D. Roosevelt. And Bush being Bush, sometimes the speeches don't come out exactly right.

In Billings, comparing the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to World War II, he noted that at Pearl Harbor "we lost fewer people than we did at the World Trade Center and in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at the Pentagon." United Flight 93 actually crashed at Shanksville, Pa., a full 137 miles from Lancaster.

He regularly mangles the name of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. And at a rally last week in Des Moines, Bush made a confident prediction: "No doubt in my mind, with your help, Dave Lamberti will be the next United States congressman." Only problem: Lamberti's first name is Jeff.

The president plays off such gaffes with practiced humor. Appearing beside Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), who has suffered from foot-in-the-mouth disease several times in this campaign, Bush noted that the senator can be "rough on the English language." He then added: "Where have I heard that before?"

Even so, for a man with fewer and fewer friends in Washington, it can be invigorating to be back out here among fans, where the protests are fewer and more sparsely attended. About 5,000 turned out to see him support Sen. James M. Talent (R-Mo.) at the Springfield Exposition Center, including 10 shirtless young men who painted letters on their chests to spell out "VOTE TALENT," and Larry Gatlin, the country music legend and longtime friend whose son, Josh, works at the White House. A similar crowd came to see Bush in nearby Joplin.

Even when a sour note turns up, it is quickly overwhelmed in these Bush bastions. The president made a stop Friday in a jampacked, sweltering high school gymnasium in Le Mars, Iowa, the self-styled ice cream capital of the world. At one point, someone in the crowd held up a painted sign that said "Impeach." Bush supporters pulled it down as the room erupted in boos. Then, following instructions given before the rally for how to drown out hecklers, volunteers started chanting "USA! USA!"

Bush plowed on with his speech as if nothing happened. The crowd responded with raucous applause, cheers and foot-stamping as if rooting their Bulldogs to a basketball title. "Cheerleaders (Heart) Bush," said one sign. In that room, in that moment, at least, the polls seemed far away.