Bush Enjoys Traveling Salesman Job

ATLANTA —  President Bush was mocked as a homebody who disdained travel and brought his own pillow on the campaign trail last year. But with a major struggle looming over his tax cut proposal, he has popped up all over the country to sell his domestic agenda--and with surprising relish.

Though his peregrinations have hardly reached Clintonesque proportions, Bush has been on the road for the last three weeks nearly as much as he has been in Washington.

On Wednesday, for instance, Bush made appearances in Beaver, Pa.; Omaha; and Council Bluffs, Iowa, before reaching his overnight destination about 6 p.m.--the Embassy Suites in Little Rock, Ark.

In his public appearances, the president invariably displays a sunny smile; but he is also demonstrating a gritty determination to do what it takes to enact his agenda, such as to “sit face to face with real Americans,” as Bush put it during a visit to the Egleston Children’s Hospital here Thursday afternoon.

In Pennsylvania, Bush explained his travels to a small gathering of workers:

“Let me say that part of my job as president . . . I might as well be just very upfront . . . is to travel the country ginning up support for this plan. And that’s why I’m here.”

On a balmy, spring-like afternoon Thursday, the president’s enthusiasm expanded further still as he told several hundred flag-waving supporters at the Fern Bank Museum of Natural History near here that his travels “get my batteries charged.”

Earlier in the day, he told a meeting of educators at the Lakewood Elementary School in North Little Rock: “I’m going to argue vociferously” for his $1.6-trillion, 10-year tax cut.

In Georgia, the president released a supportive letter from Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, the only Senate Democrat to publicly support in full Bush’s tax cut plan.

Behind the scenes, the president is also applying some arm-twisting, albeit softened by his trademark affability, as he meets with doubting members of Congress.

After two days of such campaigning, Bush offered a ride home on Air Force One to a cabin full of members of Congress, including Reps. John Lewis and Cynthia A. McKinney--both Georgia Democrats and members of the Congressional Black Caucus who have been among his harshest critics since the disputed election. Both Lewis and McKinney declined the offer.

Another recipient of the Bush treatment this week was Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who likes the idea of a big tax cut but is concerned about running up a deficit in the process.

Aboard Air Force One, Bush solicited from Nelson a host of issues on the freshman senator’s mind not connected to the tax cut.

Nelson insisted later that such a conversation did not necessarily lay the groundwork for “a quid pro quo.”

“I got no arm-twisting, no pressure,” Nelson said. “He understands that I haven’t signed on” to the tax cut.

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, put it this way: “The president has a very sweet strong-arm.”

Bush is scheduled to continue his travels next week, starting with a day trip to Newport News, Va., on Sunday to christen an aircraft carrier in honor of former President Reagan. On Tuesday, he will make a day trip to Chicago to tout his agenda. Then on Thursday, he leaves for four more days and nights away from Washington, including a weekend respite at his Texas ranch.

“It’s important for the president to take his message to the people, to continue building on his base of support,” Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, said Thursday.

Except for a quick afternoon trip to western Pennsylvania to meet with House Democrats at their mid-February retreat, Bush had hardly ventured beyond Washington’s Beltway after taking office Jan. 20.

But in the last three weeks, Bush has visited military bases in three states to promote his military reform agenda, gone to Mexico to meet with President Vicente Fox, spent a weekend at his ranch near Crawford, Texas, stopped in Oklahoma City to open a museum dedicated to victims of the 1995 bombing, and then campaigned in Ohio, Missouri and Tennessee in the run-up to his first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

Despite the rigors of being on the road, Bush has managed to keep his sense of humor intact. When asked by a 4-year-old about his pets, Bush responded happily, going as far as to tell the world that Barney, the Bushes’ Scottish terrier puppy, “is having a heck of a time on the carpet upstairs in the White House.”