Bush Country Fades Into the Landscape

CRAWFORD, Tex. -- From certain angles, this town looks as if it already got hit by a recession. The gift shop next to the police station closed about a year ago, and there's a "Building For Sale" banner flapping from the cornice. Two other gift shops have long since gone out of business. Another one is open now only on weekends. Two more are still going, but they sometimes close early in the day during the lonely winter months.

The Bush boom is over.

"It didn't last. You can only sell so many souvenirs," says the former mayor, Robert Campbell.

When the then-governor of Texas bought a ranch outside of town in 1999, Crawford suddenly became more than just a crossroads west of Waco. When George W. Bush became president of the United States, the village sprouted signs declaring itself the Western White House. Property values spiked. World leaders made regular appearances. A new bank branch opened on the main intersection.

But Bush is now a lame duck, and this little piece of Bush Country is in a transitional moment just as Texas is about to play a pivotal role in the presidential race.

The state holds a primary on March 4 in which Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton desperately needs a victory over the surging Sen. Barack Obama. But Texans are only now focusing on the primary. "I've got two land lines, and they haven't called me yet. I don't think we mattered until a few days ago," says James Hansen, 50, a motivational speaker in nearby McGregor.

The presidential campaign was supposed to be over before it ever got to Texas, so it's not as if anyone anticipated a race here. Clinton's visit to South Texas last week seemed to have been thrown together at the last minute. On Thursday the Obama campaign headquarters in Austin still had hardly a stick of furniture, and a volunteer sat on the floor tapping into his laptop.

In Crawford, the presidential contest might as well be happening on a different planet. Ask about the primary and you might get a quizzical look, as though you're bringing up something kind of eccentric, like cricket or lawn bowling. For Republicans the primary is anticlimactic, since there's already a presumptive nominee. And for the first time this century, Crawford doesn't have a dog in the fight.

You don't see any yard signs around here -- not one -- with a presidential candidate's name. You might, though, see a campaign sign for someone like "Doc" Anderson, who's running for state representative, or Stan Hickey, who's running for Precinct 5 constable.

But the politics of Crawford are more complicated than you might think.

"This was a Democratic town before Bush came here," says Joe Cuff, who owns a general store and gift shop.

Several other locals mentioned the same thing -- it's almost Crawford's dirty little secret. The town had a Democratic mayor well into Bush's tenure. But the town voted overwhelmingly for Bush in both 2000 and 2004.