WASHINGTON — Even as President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry cross each other's tracks through the same battleground states, their strategies for winning November's election appear to be diverging.
In campaign appearances and advertising purchases, both are still intensely courting the relatively small number of undecided or loosely committed voters.
But the Bush campaign's strategy is focused much more on the possibility that the race will be decided primarily by mobilizing the party faithful in closely fought states, not persuading swing voters.
"Motivating Republicans this year is as important, or possibly more important, than reaching the persuadable voters," said Matthew Dowd, the Bush campaign's chief strategist.
Indeed, Dowd said one of the campaign's top goals is to ensure that Republicans cast as large a share of November's vote as Democrats. Typically, Democrats outnumber Republicans in presidential elections.
Some Democrats argue that Bush's attention to his base signals concern about potential defections. But there's no statistical evidence for that assertion -- polls routinely show him supported by 90% or more of GOP voters. Instead, most political experts agree Bush's focus on core Republicans is aimed at increasing turnout and widening his winning margins in places where he is already strong -- the same strategy that powered the GOP to unusual gains in the 2002 midterm elections.
"The Bush campaign believes that there are functionally no swing voters, that campaigns are about the mobilization of your base and expanding the turnout of your base," said a veteran GOP operative not working for the president's campaign.
The president's emphasis on stoking the Republican base is evident in his campaign's advertising strategy: Bush has heavily outspent Kerry in about 10 media markets in safely Republican areas across the country, and he is making large ad purchases on cable television networks that reach core GOP constituencies.
"From a Bush standpoint, it appears they want to turn out their people first, and worry about the undecided second or last," said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group, a firm that tracks advertising spending for The Times.
And, although his campaign says Bush is spending at least as much time in contested communities as Kerry, some analysts in both parties say that an unusual number of the president's campaign appearances have been in places already safely in his corner, from Traverse City, Mich., to Pensacola, Fla.
