Four years ago, no matter what, Bush campaign officials were all smiles. Victory, as Karl Rove never stopped reminding people, was inevitable. Bush was so confident, he could take time off and campaign in California for a few days, which he mistakenly insisted he would win.
For what it’s worth, the smiles are gone this year.
[D]espite the insistence that all was well, the erosion in the moods of Bush’s inner circle over the past two weeks was unmistakable. Several of his close advisers said they were concerned because the president had achieved no last-minute momentum, and Democratic turnout was looking as if it might swamp the Bush-Cheney campaign’s projections.
A Republican official who is privy to Bush-Cheney strategy and polling said that as the incumbent, Bush should be further ahead of Kerry in polls. “Some of them have been moving in the right direction, but it isn’t enough,” the official said. “Karl [Rove] is a big believer in the bandwagon effect, but there has been nothing over the past week for the president to use it to turn it around.”
Still, aides said the president was joking and playing gin rummy with Rove, his senior adviser, in the conference room of his Boeing 747. Bush even agreed to join a gin rummy tournament with seven aides.
Mark McKinnon, Bush’s chief ad strategist, flew with him all day and said Bush was “nostalgic” about having so much of his team from 2000 out on the road with him one last time. Asked about the mood on the plane, a subdued McKinnon replied, in a deadpan voice: “Jubilation.”
Call me crazy, but these guys sound awfully nervous. For a gang whose optimism generally resembles delusion, this may be an encouraging sign. Indeed, whereas Bush spent the waning moments of the 2000 campaign in California, this morning the president will arrive in Ohio for last-minute appeals. “Inevitability” this is not.