Bush news conference may be sign of anxiety
Adam Nagourney NYT Tuesday, April 13, 2004
WASHINGTON President George W. Bush's decision to face the news media after a week in which he kept largely out of view while vacationing in Texas is a sign of what some Republicans have described as an increasingly jittery White House.
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Officials say they are concerned that events beyond their control, from the battlefields of Iraq to a hearing room here in Washington, are threatening a carefully planned re-election campaign.
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Bush, who previously held only two news conferences on prime-time television, was to hold his third on Tuesday evening.
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Bush's senior advisers expressed confidence on Monday about the president's political standing. But other Republicans close to the White House expressed unease about world events, noting opinion polls that revealed growing questions among Americans about where the nation is heading, a measure that pollsters historically watch closely as a barometer of trouble for an incumbent.
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Of particular concern, one Republican close to the White House said, are indications that a spate of Bush's television advertisements intended to undercut his Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry, has been partly blunted by the distraction of Iraq and the hearings of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.
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