GALLUP, N.M. — It was a novelty back then, two good old Southern boys and their blond wives setting off on a political road trip across America. It was quickly dubbed Bill and Al's Excellent Adventure, and indeed it was.
In the summer of 1992, with a Bush in the White House and healthcare and the economy making people nervous, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, two men in their mid-40s, set out from the Democratic National Convention with nothing but highway and the future ahead of them.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday August 12, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 37 words Type of Material: Correction
Candidate's schedule -- A map in Monday's Section A with an article about Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry's cross-country tour indicated that he would campaign in Las Vegas on Monday. Kerry was in Arizona that day.
They traveled by bus, that most proletarian of vehicles, hugging the back roads and side streets of overlooked America, drawing spectacular crowds and capturing political lightning with their bare hands.
A cliche was born.
Now every politician rides the bus -- even movie star governors such as Arnold Schwarzenegger -- to show their everyman accessibility and, just maybe, kindle a bit of that 1992 magic.
The latest sojourner of the blacktop is John F. Kerry, this year's Democratic presidential nominee, joined by running mate John Edwards for parts of a 14-day cross-country swing that has alternated between bus, boat and train as Kerry meanders his way from Boston to Los Angeles and up the coast into Oregon.
Much has changed. Much is the same.
There is a Bush in the White House once more. Healthcare and the economy are making people nervous. And Kerry's route is again the one less traveled, through cornfields and across lonesome prairies, to the out-of-the-way places where people are thrilled to have a celebrity drop by.
"Inside I'm just, 'Oh, I can't believe he's here,' " said Lynette Lucey, a 61-year-old elementary school teacher, who was all aflutter when Kerry stopped in tiny Cuba City, Wis., population 2,000, during one of the early legs of his trip. "I watched him at the convention and was cheering from my chair. Now to come out and see him, it's unbelievable."
Kerry's stop wasn't as casual as all that. President Bush made a pass through the farm town in May without stopping, or even slowing down. (Locals still gripe about the presidential motorcade exceeding the speed limit by 20 mph.) "It was the most disappointing day," Lucey said, recounting how the faces of her schoolchildren "just dropped."
Kerry, mindful of those bruised feelings, was only too happy to swing through.
