To the White House, Baby.

• Author: Bruni, Frank
• Position: Following the Bush campaign - Brief Article

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL WITH GEORGE W. BUSH, A REPORTER GETS AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE PROCESS OF CHOOSING OUR NATION'S LEADER AND, IN RARE MOMENTS, A GLIMPSE OF THE PERSON BEHIND THE CANDIDATE

On the long, winding, and peculiar trail that could very well deposit Texas Governor George W. Bush in the Oval Office, there have been moments more pivotal and moments more perilous. But for my money--and amusement--there has not yet been a moment as memorable as the one when Bush loved the babies three times.

In the standard speech that Bush delivers to audiences in New Hampshire or Iowa or Michigan or New York, he promises that the America he envisions, the America he hopes to lead, will exhort young, unmarried men and women not to have children, not to stifle the achievement of dreams with an awesome responsibility they may not be ready to handle.

But Bush, who likes to call himself a "compassionate conservative," also pledges that any children born into such difficult situations will not be neglected by society. "We will love the babies in America," Bush vows. And then, once again, as if he has been seized suddenly by conviction and has to repeat it, Bush adds, "We'll love the babies."

SOUNDS SPONTANEOUS

It sounds like a spontaneous addition of emphasis, an impromptu exclamation point. It isn't. Bush has loved the babies twice in Buffalo, New York, and Bedford, New Hampshire. He has loved the babies twice not only for the six months that he has been formally campaigning for the Presidency, but also for many of the five years he has been governor of Texas.

So when, in Seneca, South Carolina, in early November, he loved the babies a third time, turning a verbal tic into a near stutter, aides to Bush and reporters who had been slumbering through Bush's speech snapped instantly to attention.

"Did you hear that?" a reporter asked.

"There's no end to our loving of the babies," a Bush aide responded.

THE CROWD GOES WILD

There were grins and quips all around, and for this reason: a Presidential campaign is so carefully plotted and programmed that even the slightest deviation from the plan is like an oasis in the desert to the press corps. When we spotted this one, we dived into it and drank it up.

To shadow Bush--or, for that matter, many other candidates--is to listen to the same words over and over, ad infinitum. The people in Arizona have not heard what he said to the people in Georgia, and the people in Georgia have not heard what he said to the people in...