Campaign 2000: Can Bush Get Serious?

At 7 P.M. last Thursday, 18 young men and women stood chin to shoulder in a small office at George W. Bush's Austin headquarters. His policy shop was gathering for its second meeting of the day. The group looked wrung out--the men unshaven, the women a bit frazzled--and not just because they have been putting in 100-hr. weeks for most of the year. The last two of those weeks have seen Al Gore grab the lead from Bush in many national and statewide polls, in part because Gore has been taking the hatchet to Bush's policies--calling his tax cut irresponsible, scolding him for not yet offering a plan to give a prescription-drugs benefit to seniors, reviving the message that Bush is too lightweight for the job. The Republican candidate needs to look serious, fast--and it's the shop's job to help him do it. The next big test: Bush's speech unveiling his prescription-drugs plan, set for this week.

At the meeting, members of the policy team take turns. As they speak, it becomes clear that in college, these were the students whose notes you copied the day before finals. One runs down Gore's line of attack on Bush's education message. Another reports that Bush's big speech is in its third revision. The Governor has just seen his first copy, sent over an hour earlier in one of the narrow black binders that line the shelves of the room. Spaces have been left in the text for anecdotes that are still being "scrubbed" to make sure the real-life stories can withstand scrutiny. An economic update is next; someone makes a joke about budget baselines. Everyone laughs.

Quietly running the meeting is Josh Bolten, the Bush campaign's 45-year-old policy director. With iron-filings hair and the placid calm of a seminarian, the former investment banker seems oddly relaxed for someone in the thick of a pivotal battle. Gore's strategy is to do to Bush what he did to Bill Bradley--provoke the Governor into policy debates and then strangle him with details. Gore "distorts in a very detailed way," says Bolten. The policy shop must parry those criticisms, but if Bush spends too much time rebutting them, he'll look defensive and blot out his own message.

To help avoid that trap, the G.O.P. launched the first personal attack ad of the campaign last Friday, mocking Gore with images of the Vice President's infamous Internet boast and Buddhist-temple visit. The goal of the ad: to discredit Gore's policy attacks before he makes them, by undermining his credibility with voters. Every time Gore blasts Bush's policies, Bush wants to be able to say, "There he goes again," and have voters nod in agreement. But even as the campaign plays the character card, Bolten must protect his candidate's weak flank. Which is why the prescription-drugs speech is so important. Gore has experience on the issue going all the way back to his House days, and Bush is far less comfortable with it than he is with his signature issue of education. If the policy isn't credible, Gore's attacks are likely to stick.