He’s Bush’s campaign manager, and I just talked to him. He doesn’t believe the polls that have Bush up 14. “I think we’re about a 4 or 5 point race.” He’s not worried about overconfidence: “The reality is I think everyone understands that the nature of the environment is it’s never going to be like 1984 where you know you’ve won the election.” He thinks it’s a tight race in Minnesota. “That’s a state that is trending away from its historic Democratic roots. You’re also seeing it to some extent in Wisconsin, and you saw it in Texas in the ’80s and ’90s: First the suburbs and then the rural areas begin to vote their ideology instead of their heritage. Those areas are culturally conservative and increasingly economically conservative.”
He mentioned Bush’s oft-expressed hope that he does not have a “lonely victory.” “Candidates that want a personal victory say vote for me, I’m a good guy,” said Mehlman. “Candidates that want a broad-based victory say vote for us, we have an agenda. That’s what the president is doing.”