Actually, the maneuvers go back to Sept. 11 itself, when the White House and Rove were spinning furiously to counter criticism that Bush spent the day hop-scotching around the country on Air Force One, from Florida to Louisiana and Nebraska before finally returning to the White House where he made some ineffectual remarks to a terrified nation. Two days after the attacks, and still scrambling to fix the problem, Rove and the administration announced it had uncovered "credible evidence" the White House and Air Force One had been terrorist targets on Sept. 11, which explained why Bush made so many unscheduled stops and took so long to return to the White House.

The tactic stopped the political bleeding for Bush, with critics suddenly reluctant to question his questionable Sept. 11 response. By the end of the month though, the story fell apart and the White House all but conceded it had no "credible evidence" that any such threats were ever made against Air Force One. "Karl plays outside the bounds -- whatever is necessary to win," says Moore.

Last year, the White House gave a photo taken of Bush aboard Air Force One on Sept. 11 to the Republican Party, which sold the photo to political donors. Democrats denounced the move as blatant attempt to cash in on the national tragedy. The charge apparently had no effect. More recently, in another audacious move, the Republican Party broke a longstanding agreement with Democrats and moved its nominating convention from August to September. That means come 2004, Bush will receive his party's nomination in New York City just days before he attends memorials marking the third anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. The Republicans' convention announcement caused barely a ripple of protest among pundits or members of the passive opposition party.

"The White House doesn't even care that the Democratic Party exists," says one Democratic operative, who sees the current dynamic as just the latest example of how the two parties approach politics by different sets of rules. "Democrats play the game the way children play marbles on the playground," the operative said. "Republicans play it like they own the marbles and the playground ... We worry about what the editorial pages will say and try not to hurt anybody's feeling. They play it the way the game's supposed to be played."

The game has certainly changed since Bush's father was in the White House and looked to James Baker, the former secretary of state, for political guidance following Gulf War I. "There's no question Bush Sr. was far less of a political president than this president," say Rick Shenkman, editor of George Mason University's History News Network. Aside from a victory parade in Washington and a Desert Storm video shown at the '92 Republican Convention, "he didn't really seek to exploit the Gulf War victory," Shenkman says. "He could've done a lot more rah-rah stuff."

Moore and others trace the difference directly to the differences between Baker and Rove. "Baker fancied himself a diplomat and didn't like retail politics, and when he did them it was almost pro forma," says Moore. By contrast, "Rove is absolutely a political animal and lives for that stuff.

"W. implicitly trusts Rove in a way his father did not trust James Baker," Moore adds. "W. is able to be freed up, to do what he does because he knows Karl has everything under control. W. doesn't fret about a backlash over the absurdity of flying out to Lincoln, because Karl has it all perfectly planned. The timing is right, the image is right, the message is right. And the press won't ask questions."

That's another crucial factor working in favor of the White House that Bush Sr. did not have in 1992 -- a tame press corps that, like many Democrats, feels uncomfortable asking pointed questions of a wartime president. That's when the press isn't simply fawning over Bush. In NBC's April special, "Commander in Chief: Inside the White House at War," anchor Tom Brokaw spent the first 10 minutes of his exclusive interview walking Bush through the decision to launch an opportunity strike against Saddam Hussein before the scheduled start of the attack after getting intelligence that Hussein was inside a Baghdad bunker. The strike was portrayed as a victory of American intelligence and military ingenuity; Brokaw never told viewers that most intelligence analysts believe Saddam survived the missile attack.

Despite the advantages that come with Rove's expert manipulation of the wartime political climate, it's still possible the president's reelection bid could collapse between now and 2004. If the economy continues to stagnate and public opinion remains opposed to his tax cut proposal, the emerging narrative of his reelection could be that Bush is doomed to repeat his father's defeat.

"If you assume the war in Iraq is over and reconstruction is messy and if there aren't new instances of terrorism, I don't think he's in a lot better shape than his father was in terms of the context for reelection," says Jeremy Rosner, a Democratic pollster and national security specialist. "This campaign is not over by any means. Bush could still win the war and lose the election."

And the fact is his postwar jump in the polls has not been all that impressive, and nowhere near as dramatic as his father's following Gulf War I. According to surveys conducted by Newsweek, Bush's job approval ratings today are up just 13 points from the eve of the war.

Still, some Democrats, surveying the candidates and the media landscape those candidates must traverse, worry about the coming election. "I'm optimistic because I'm a fighter, but we've got a long way to go," says Brazile. "This could be 1972 for Democrats," she says, referring to Republican Richard Nixon's rout of Democratic Sen. George McGovern.

"There's nobody to challenge the president," adds Democrat Zogby. "The debate is theirs, it's on their turf, and Democrats and the press are too afraid to ask questions. I fear for what's going to happen to Democrats in 2004."

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