George now wants to run as the reg'lar guy. Joe Six-pack. Danny K-Mart. Mr. Greenjeans.
Screw that. My president better damn well be the brightest, smartest superior being I could ever aspire to be...or at least better than some lucky bastard who is an expert only in clearing brush (and brought up with an entire silver set in his mouth).
Regular guy. Right. This tour screams for signage.
Bush tour to tap 'regular guy' appeal
The president will travel by bus through the Midwest this week, taking common touch to key swing states.
WASHINGTON - When George W. Bush gets on a bus Monday to head into the American heartland for a series of "Ask the President" events and even a pancake breakfast or two, he will be making a deliberate statement to voters: I am not an imperial president.
Unlike all his fundraising trips around the country over the past many months, aimed at intersecting with as many wealthy donors as possible, the president's bus tour seeks to generate maximum media exposure and project a regular-guy likability that his campaign believes contrasts favorably with his Democratic opponent, John Kerry.
The four states he will visit - Michigan and Ohio early in the week, followed by Wisconsin and Iowa - represent 54 electoral votes, a fraction of the 270 he will need to win in November, but any one of those four states could spell the difference between victory and defeat.
Ironically, the populist technique of touring by bus was perfected by the man who defeated his father: Bill Clinton. And the current President Bush comes from just as privileged a background as his father, but with a Texas overlay that makes him more comfortable with regular folks than George H. W. Bush has ever seemed.
