Quotes of the Day

Vice President Cheney marched onto Air Force Two Thursday morning with fat briefing books under each arm as he headed out for another day of tireless campaigning — which may not be his first love but turns out to be one of his most valuable gifts to a beleaguered Republican Party. The Vice President is so warmly received by the conservative faithful that he is routinely able to joke that his welcome is "almost enough to make me run for office again." He lets the laughter and applause die down and then deadpans, "Almost."

The Republican National Committee says the Vice President has raised an astounding $40 million for the midterm elections at 113 campaign events since his reelection, including $215,000 at a reception in Topeka for Congressman Jim Ryun and $180,000 tonight in New Orleans at a reception for the national party, to be held at a club with a 30th-floor view of the Mississippi River. While in Louisiana, he was also receiving briefings from the Army Corps of Engineers and from Don Powell, the federal coordinator of Gulf Coast reconstruction, and touring a barge company by the Port of New Orleans.

Cheney is hitting the road at a time when party strategists are fretting that their two-year effort to build turnout machines in key states and districts — and to "micro-target" people whose demography suggests they would vote Republican if they turned out — will come to naught because base supporters are so dispirited by Iraq, deficits and the Mark Foley Capitol Hill sex scandal. Leaders of social conservative groups say it's all putting a heavy drag on the party's core of support. But this is exactly where the Vice President has always been strongest, and he's working these crowds even harder than he did for the midterms of '02, when he also kept a heavy campaign schedule. The Vice President's office says the 113 events have benefited 138 different political committees, including 57 House campaigns, 32 national Republican groups or state parties, 20 Senate campaigns and four gubernatorial campaigns.

The Vice President often joked about his charisma deficit when he was on the road for his own ticket in 2004, and he tells applauding audiences these days, "Don't hold back!" In Houston, he joked, "At ease, please." He still jokes that as the lone Congressman from Wyoming, his delegation was small — "but it was quality." For the Topeka crowd today, he noted of his tie-breakers as president of the Senate, "The thing I've noticed is that every time I get to vote, our side wins." The meat of his message, thought reprises his attack-dog role from the 2004 campaign. The President tends to avoid singling out particular legislators from the opposition, while Cheney names names, especially when he's talking about the likely committee chairs if Democrats were to retake the House or Senate. In Topeka, where the Vice President warned against "any strategy of resignation and defeatism," the audience responded with scattered boos when he reeled off the names of Democrats who could head committees if the G.O.P. lost control of the House or Senate.

"I notice that now, with only weeks to go before Election Day, the leader of the House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, claims Democrats 'love tax cuts,'" he told the Topeka crowd. "That only invites another look at her party's record on taxes. The last time they had control of Congress, back in 1993, they passed a massive tax increase. They'll do it again if they can." Pelosi's office said in a statement after Bush made a similar remark during his Rose Garden news conference on Wednesday that Democrats' plans for middle-income tax cuts stand "in stark contrast to the Republican tax breaks for the super-rich."

Cheney is also reprising some of his more apocalyptic rhetoric from the last campaign, including his warning that there is no guarantee that the nation will avoid "another 9/11." But he says it's "no accident" that hasn't happened yet, and points to administration-backed anti-terrorism tools that have drawn criticism from Democrats who argue that Bush has overreached. He wraps up by asserting it is "no surprise that such a party would turn its back on a man like Senator Joe Lieberman," the Connecticut Democrat (and Cheney counterpart on Al Gore's ticket in 2000) who lost his primary over his support for the Iraq war, and is now running as an independent. "It's a reminder that the elections on November 7th will have enormous consequences for this nation, one way or the other," he says. It's a message he seems to deliver with relish. And in these crowds, the audience returns the favor.

• MIKE ALLEN/TOPEKA
• The Republicans fear they may be in trouble come Election Day. Enter the campaigner who specializes in turning out the base