My Jog with George

By James Carney

George W. Bush's new campaign strategy is pretty easy to figure out: be mean to John McCain and nice to the media. It's also a big U-turn. Until he was pummeled like a rag doll in the New Hampshire primary, Bush had it all backward. He went easy on his rival--refusing to attack his "friend John"--and kept a wary distance from the traveling press corps. Not anymore. As he unveiled his new-look campaign in South Carolina last week, including Oprah-style sessions with citizens and banners heralding him as A REFORMER WITH RESULTS, Bush tore into McCain like a pit bull let loose in a slaughterhouse. "John" was out. "Chairman McCain," meant to remind voters that McCain presides over the Senate's Commerce Committee, was in. So was schmoozing with journalists.

Which explains how, at a community park in Gaffney, S.C., last Wednesday, I found my reasonably fit 34-year-old body straining to keep up with the health-conscious 53-year-old Governor as he sped around a track for four miles at the impressive pace of 7 1/2 minutes per mile. Pulling up lame, I watched while Bush cruised the final mile by himself. "It's unfair," Bush said graciously as I wheezed. "You didn't have a chance to warm up."

As we walked around the track cooling off--with only his security detail watching from a distance--Bush was surprisingly voluble and candid. He spoke of his college days at Yale, where he says he "worked hard and had a lot of fun" but also encountered an East Coast intellectual "arrogance" that annoyed him. He said he was furious when a stolen copy of his Yale transcript, with its gentleman Cs, turned up in print last fall in what he deemed "a violation of my civil rights," but then decided not to push the school to find the culprit. Making a smooth segue into foreign policy, he offered a nuanced assessment of Russia's acting President Vladimir Putin as "showing signs of pragmatism," but added, correctly, that "anyone who tells you they have Putin figured out is blowing smoke."

Bush has neatly rationalized his loss in New Hampshire. "Either it was over before it began because I was never going to win there," Bush mused, "or it was over [in October] when I missed that debate." (He skipped it to attend a ceremony honoring his wife.) True to his reputation as an optimist, Bush claimed the loss did him good. "It's not a bad thing that I got knocked on my [backside]," he said. "I think it's important for people to see me stand up and dust myself off and fight. People want to see that I can win this thing myself"--that is, to prove he is more than a famous name with a big war chest.

When I asked whether, if he became President, he would consider offering either Steve Forbes or McCain a Cabinet post, Bush ruminated about how the desire for power--the power to do good, as well as power for its own sake--is a salve that can heal most political wounds. "I understand how power works," he said. In other words: maybe. He also admitted to "a long memory" for slights. In other words: maybe not.

Bush said some things that were implicitly off the record and will stay that way. He was doing what McCain does, which is create an understanding with a reporter. In return for letting his guard down, Bush expects not to see his candor used against him. Fair enough. As for South Carolina, where this week's primary may decide his fate, Bush seemed genuinely confident. "You can't win the Republican primary sounding like a Democrat," he said of McCain as he squinted into the sun. "Not in this state."