Media Pulling Bandwagon for Bush--for Now

NEW YORK —  If George W. Bush were a play, he just opened in New Haven--with every critic in America breathing down his neck.

As he traipsed through New Hampshire on Monday and Iowa over the weekend, the high-flying GOP presidential candidate was pursued by an army of more than 300 reporters, including 30 television crews, some from foreign countries. In a little more than 48 hours, they dissected everything from his foreign policy statements to his taste in clothes.

The avalanche of coverage may seem out of kilter, since the 2000 presidential election is 17 months away and few Americans have focused on the race. But the nation’s political cycle starts earlier all the time, and pundits seem to have a lot invested in this race, according to several authorities.

Indeed, the Texas governor’s powerful break from the gate has many salivating at the thought of covering a real political story this time, unlike the sleep-inducing Clinton-Dole contest in 1996.

“Let’s face it, the press was bored to death four years ago,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist. “Today, you have reporters swarming all over Bush because they are hungry for a battle. You can see it in their coverage and their excitement; they’re almost desperate.”

So far, it’s worked to Bush’s advantage, with largely favorable stories chronicling his first campaign trips. But in a foreshadowing of things to come, the punditocracy began its inevitable probing of Bush the Younger over the weekend--dispensing instant judgments and making brash predictions about his chances.

Never mind that many Washington Beltway soothsayers were flat out wrong about President Clinton’s fate in the Lewinsky scandal as well as the outcome of the war in Kosovo. “We’ll just have to wait and see if they blow these new political predictions about Bush, too,” said Matthew Dallek, who writes for Salon, an online magazine.

In a front page story, the Washington Post called Bush and Vice President Al Gore’s declarations of candidacy this week “the political equivalent of ‘High Noon,’ ” even though the election is barely registering on most Americans’ radar screens. Time and Newsweek put the Texan on their covers, both asking: Who exactly is George W. Bush?

“He’s relaxed, confident, and some might say, a little full of himself,” declared NBC’s Lisa Myers on Monday. Time’s Sam Gwynne, offering an instant reaction to Bush’s New Hampshire speech, added on MSNBC: “There’s a cockiness, an arrogance, a kind of bantam quality to his character that’s on display in press conferences.”

Several journalists noted that the governor perspires visibly, while MSNBC’s Laura Ingraham quipped that “blue is his best [shirt] color, we’ve already determined that.” Several suggested that Bush’s foreign policy answers needed polishing, but most agreed his “compassionate conservatism” line is a hit.

Most of the coverage was gushing, to no one’s surprise, according to Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. “He [Bush] isn’t just having a honeymoon, it’s a coronation because of his big lead in the polls,” she said. “But the media can’t allow the story to continue in this way, because if it goes on, the story will simply die. So an alternative set of hormones will kick in, and soon you’ll see negative pieces.”

The next big media development, she predicted, will be the elevation of Bush’s chief rival among a field of 10, because “these stories are always written as a two-sided conflict. Yet right now, with all the candidates, the press can’t figure out who’s No. 2.”

The candidate may have an air of inevitability about him now, but others couldn’t resist taking a dig at the GOP’s bright new political hope: “Famous brand name. Fawning press coverage. Huge polling lead,” wrote Boston Globe columnist David Nyhan. “Just like Teddy Kennedy 20 years ago getting ready to fight for the second presidency of his family.”