NYT, pg. 1: Campaign Tactics Being Reversed As Events Shift [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

The day was a snapshot of the presidential contest, as realities on the ground — the upbeat economic growth figures and the deadly helicopter attack — intruded on the best-laid plans of the candidates and this White House.

The Democrats want to blame Mr. Bush for a weak economy that may be finding its step just in time for next year's election, while Mr. Bush is confronting the possibility of campaigning against a backdrop of American casualties and chaos in the war he began.

So in the topsy-turvy world of presidential politics, Mr. Bush was talking up the economy — the very issue that Democrats have long argued would make him a one-term president. And Democrats were hammering Mr. Bush on the very subject that many Republicans argued would guarantee his re-election: foreign policy.

This could very well prove to be a passing moment in the larger struggle of whether the course of this campaign will be determined more by foreign policy or by the economy. Still, over the last few days there has clearly been an across-the-board recalibration by Democrats and Mr. Bush as they try to keep up — and capitalize on — the changing landscape.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/politics/campaigns/04CAMP.html?hp