Still Up For Grabs
On the campaign trail Friday, George W. Bush asked some San Diego schoolchildren, "Have you ever had a bad day before?"
For Bush, the answer to that question is yes, a number of them, in fact. As CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts reports, in a week that began with the controversy over Bush's "RATS" ad and ended with his caving on presidential debates, the retooled Bush campaign looks more than a little disoriented to political analysts.
"Bush reminds me of a wide receiver who's just caught the pass and then been hit hard, blindsided by a linebacker," says Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report.
Still, a CBS News analysis shows the race for the White House remains close enough to make any bets a fool's game. Democrat Al Gore is ahead in 16 states, Bush in 21, with the remaining 14 contests narrow enough that the election could turn either way. The electoral vote count is 224 for Gore to 175 for Bush; 270 are needed to win. On the field of public opinion, Bush is down, but far from out.
Cook says the Bush campaign has "had three of the most horrendous weeks that a presidential general election campaign has had in a long time and they're only three, four, five points behind."
In an effort to trim that deficit, Bush is switching strategy from attacks on Gore's character to a fight in the policy arena. That's traditionally Democratic turf, but it's a game Bush plays better than most Republicans, says Democratic strategist Bob Beckel.
"His real problem now is time," Beckel says. "They're just running out of days. For Bush to be successful he's going to have to do it where most other underdogs do it, in debates."
But don't expect Republicans to let go of the character issue completely. Not when Gore gives them the sort of ammunition he did at Thursday night's gala fund-raiser at New York's Radio City Music Hall, where he chastised Hollywood on the one hand while accepting millions in campaign contributions from them with the other.
With the Olympics taking center stage for the next two weeks, watch for the candidates to dial back a bit on the campaign intensity. They're now both looking forward to next month's debates, where the final battle for those undecideds will be waged face to face.