PRESIDENT BUSH flies into the scorching heat of the Texas summer today for a month pursuing two of his greatest enthusiasms: clearing brush from his ranch and raising money for his re-election.
Even by his relaxed standards, the 29 days that Mr Bush will spend away from the White House is unprecedented. Ever one to keep official meetings and briefings to a minimum, he was itching to get out of Washington yesterday.
“I got my summer buzz,” he said, before an end-of-term Cabinet meeting, apparently referring to his pre-holiday visit from the barber. “I’m ready to get down there.”
But a Bush summer break is not for the fainthearted. Official business may take a back seat as he drives around his 1,600-acre ranch near the hamlet of Crawford. But Mr Bush peppers his days with runs — with the heat hitting more than 40C (104F) — along the six miles of paths through his land, and pursuing his passion for cutting and burning the cedars that deprive the hardwoods of scarce water.
The length of Mr Bush’s summer break at Prairie Chapel ranch, which sparked a mini-storm in his first year in office, has ceased to cause comment in workaholic Washington, becoming an accepted part of the President’s year.
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US officials also emphasise that a president in the 21st century, unlike his predecessors, can hardly take a complete break. Mr Bush receives a daily intelligence briefing from a secure video conference centre. During the month, he will receive Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, for a day of talks, and hold a mini- economic summit, covering an area in which he may be most vulnerable in next year’s presidential election.
But the event will be buoyed by this week’s figures showing that the US economy, which has suffered for two years, grew at 2.4 per cent in the second quarter of this year, raising hopes that sustained recovery is around the corner.
But the real business of August for Mr Bush is swelling his election war chest. He will leave the ranch four times, making a fundraising speech every five days on average.
Thanks to a careful itinerary from the White House, each party political event has been twinned with a semi-official engagement, meaning that the taxpayer will foot at least half the bill for Mr Bush’s efforts to raise $200 million (£125 million) for next year’s election. The system, which was pursued vigorously by President Clinton, has become accepted practice in America.
The fundraising will take Mr Bush to California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Minnesota. Colorado was the only one of the five that he won in 2000. In the Pacific states, his official visits carry a heavy environmental theme, one of the issues on which he is faulted in opinion polls by a majority of Americans.
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The striking sight of Mr Bush’s fundraising juggernaut generating millions of dollars at a time when he has no Democrat opponent and will not have until well into next year when Democrats reduce their nine candidates to one is designed to cow opponents.
When Mr Bush was asked this week how he could justify spending so much money, he made it clear that he had no qualms. If he succeeds in reaching $200 million, it would double the record campaign funds that he raised for 2000. Asked how he could spend such vast amounts, Mr Bush said: “Just watch me.”
Speaking at this week’s Rose Garden press conference, he defended the time that he has spent fundraising so far ahead of polling day: “(The American people) expect me to actually do what candidates do.”