Campaign 2000: How Bush Lost His Edge

He told his panicky party to calm down, that the race had to tighten. But what do Bush's reflexes under pressure reveal about him?

"Just remember," George W. Bush told aides in his Detroit hotel room last Thursday morning, as he read his political obituaries in the papers, "this is when you find out who your friends are." The polls were so tight it was getting harder to breathe; Republican wise men in Washington were calling for a human sacrifice. But this is the same team that saw Bush through his two races for Governor and helped him dig out from the New Hampshire avalanche. It would be unthinkable for him to abandon them now. In fact, Bush is making his own target list, of...

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