New elements to Bush strategy

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, FEB. 7. Pressured on all fronts in the aftermath of the drubbing in New Hampshire, the Republican front-runner, Mr. George W. Bush, has apparently decided that he is going to take no chances in the February 19 Primary in the State of South Carolina. And he is doing this by adding some long hours of campaigning and seeing how best he could enlist the services of the State's senior Senator, Mr. Strom Thurmond.

The leaning on Mr. Thurmond has different angles to it - aside from being a respected Senator in Washington D.C., Mr. Thurmond has put in more than 30 years of service in the armed forces and this should help the Texas Governor in South Carolina where more than 500,000 active and retired military personnel live. The military personnel angle has been exploited by Mr. Bush's nearest rival, Senator John McCain, who was an active duty pilot in the Navy and is a Vietnam war veteran who spent close to five years as a prisoner of war.

Now the Bush campaign wants to make sure that these military personnel will not completely endorse Mr. McCain who seems to be making inroads into almost any category within the Republican Party and amongst independent voters. The latest poll shows that Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush are in a statistical dead heat, which means that the Texas Governor has lost the 20 point advantage he had just about a month ago.

The small comfort at this point of time to the Bush campaign is that the candidate has the backing of the State and national party establishment machine and the hope is that this will translate into votes in South Carolina. At the State level, this is all the more reason why the Bush campaign has come to lean a little more on conservatives such as Senator Thurmond.

On a national scale, polls show that Mr. Bush is still the most favoured candidate from among the Republican voters; but that aura of invincibility has been punctured and has become more pronounced since the political thrashing received at the hands of Senator McCain in New Hampshire. The latest polls still show that Mr. Bush is leading Senator McCain by a margin of 57 per cent to 26 per cent nationally; but last month the former was leading 60 per cent to 18 per cent.

Interestingly, polls are showing that Mr. Bush's lead in hypothetical matchups against Democratic candidates is also declining. For instance, there is a virtual tie between Mr. Bush and the Vice-President, Mr. Albert Gore Jr.; and the Texas Governor's lead over Mr. Bill Bradley - which in January was around 20 percentage points - has dropped to a mere six percentage points. On the other hand, polls reveal that Mr. McCain is also in a tie with Mr. Gore but trails Mr. Bradley by a very small margin of two percentage points.

Political analysts say that South Carolina will be critical for both Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain. The former has to ensure that Mr. McCain's recent surge is nothing more than a ``bounce'' in the aftermath of New Hampshire; by the same token, Mr. McCain will have to do well in South Carolina if his campaign is to be sustained nationally.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Taliban rules out talks
Next     : Hillary declares candidacy for Senate