Trolling for votes, Bush rides the luxury bus in hard-hit Midwest

[dArKeR]

By Elizabeth Bumiller
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , Kalamazoo, Michigan
Saturday, May 08, 2004,Page 9

On the first extensive trip of his re-election campaign, US President George W. Bush went rumbling by luxury bus across southern Michigan on Monday with the intensity of a man running as if the election were six days away rather than six months away.

Jumping off at three stops from his new red, white and blue campaign bus, which was plastered on its gleaming side with the slogan "Yes, America Can," Bush fielded questions from a hand-picked crowd at an "Ask President Bush" talk in Niles, and made fun of Senator John Kerry's family sport utility vehicles before a crowd of 5,000 in a hockey stadium here. Bush appeared at a large outdoor rally in suburban Detroit late in the day.

Through it all, Bush suddenly sounded a lot more like a candidate than an incumbent president.

"Listen, I'm here to ask for your help," Bush, in blue oxford-cloth shirt-sleeves, told the crowd in the gym at the Niles Senior High School, in an area hard hit by job losses. "I can't win Michigan without you."

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/05/08/2003154675

Shouldn't this title be 'Trolling for votes, Bush rides the luxury bus in hard-hit Midwest while out children are butchered in Iraq.' Shouldn't someone raise the question that Bush should be more concerned about solving the Iraq crisis rather than campaigning and fund raising?

[punpirate]

1. Elizabeth Bumiller just doing her job...

... as friend of the administration... selling Bush as a regular guy, in tune with common folk....

[leftistagitator]

7. Regular guy?

I'm sorry, you're selling her short here. She brings up the fact that he took a luxury bus with leather sofas, a flat screen TV, and a kitchenette to one of the hardest hit regions of the * recession. It's hardly a flattering portrayal, makes him seem out of touch to me.

[punpirate]

8. Umm... why is this in the report then?

""Listen, I'm here to ask for your help," Bush, in blue oxford-cloth shirt-sleeves,..." That's what I mean by portraying Bush as a regular guy. He's in his shirt-sleeves amongst the working class. She never says, outright, that it's a ploy. If she can't say, outright, that it's a ploy, an image, meant to impress the working class that Bush is one of them, then she's not done her job, because that's what the Bushies intend it to be--nothing more than image-making for political purposes.

Bumiller is a friend of the administration. She is invited to dinner with the likes of Condoleezza Rice. She's one of the people on the Times that thinks that access to the White House is dependent upon schmoozing with the people in the White House.

To me, she typifies all that's wrong with the media today. She should be excoriating the man on the facts, and yet, she's not done so--she's more interested in "color" than substance.

[unblock]

2. yes, america can ... can bush? yes, america can ... can bush!

[Lefty48197]

3. This was no "Bus Tour"

He flew from Detroit to Toledo. What a maroon.

[KLF44]

4. Guess where the bus

was bought from? CANADA!!!

[newyawker99]

9. Hi KLF44!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[dArKeR]

5. I'm 90% sure I saw Laura Bush being booed on C-SPAN here.

aWol said 'we need 4 more years of Laura' and then a massive 'boo' came from the crowd. aWol looked stunned and stopped. The camera panned to this area.

Didn't any of you see this?

[unblock]

6. they're not booing they're yelling 'buuuuuuuush'