Bush's Isolation From Reporters Could Be Hindrance: "Bush's campaign has taken unprecedented steps to shield him from dissenters and even from curious, undecided voters. On the way to the forum outside Cleveland, the media buses that went ahead of Bush were temporarily marooned in a church parking lot because police had been told to divert all buses since they could contain demonstrators.
Bush's handlers have pulled the presidential bubble especially tight during the campaign, but he often has kept his distance from the public and the media throughout his term. He rarely plays tourist on trips, and has held the fewest solo news conferences of any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Bush has held 15 solo news conferences since taking office. At the same point in their presidencies, according to research by Martha Joynt Kumar of Towson University in Maryland, Bill Clinton had held 42; George H.W. Bush, 83; Ronald Reagan, 26 in his first term; Jimmy Carter, 59; Gerald R. Ford, 39; Richard M. Nixon, 29 in his first term; Lyndon B. Johnson, 88; John F. Kennedy, 65; and Eisenhower, 94."
- posted by geoff @ #