alienation news

Bush election drive to tap September 11 memories

The Republican party has scheduled its 2004 party convention unusually late in the year so that the climactic moment when President Bush's re-election campaign begins will nearly coincide with the third anniversary of the September 11 attack, according to a report yesterday.
The New York convention, in late August and early September next year, will mark the formal launch of the re-election campaign, but unofficially it has already started. With the war in Iraq barely over, the president has already begun holding rallies in key swing states.
Its central theme has already become clear: the conflict between Mr Bush's popularity as a wartime leader and the national ambivalence towards his domestic policies, a political chasm which the Democrats will seek to exploit.