The American Spectator

p> PRIMED TIME br> Expectations are high for a speech President Bush is to make today before the Republican members of the National Governors Association meeting in Washington. The speech is expected to be the rollout of the Bush campaign stump speech he will use over the next few months in the lead up to the fall run for re-election. /p>

“He’s primed. Perhaps we’re a few weeks earlier than we planned,” says a Bush campaign adviser. “But the polls, the public are telling us its time to get moving and get this campaign up and running.”

At the same time that Bush will be making his speech, the Bush campaign is expected to start running TV and radio time in selected cities around the country. The image ads are again the first real Republican salvo in the 2004 race. “John Kerry and Terry McAuliffe have been getting a free ride at our expense long enough,” says the campaign adviser. “Now they are going to have to start playing a little defense.”

p> TICKET PUNCHER br> According to a staffer at the Democratic National Committee, senior staff there continue to hear stories of Bill and Hillary Clinton emissaries fanning out to keep the New York senator’s name in play during the final weeks of the Democratic primary season. “It’s unseemly for her to be out there when we have Edwards and Kerry battling it out, but the Clinton people don’t want her too far out of peoples’ minds,” says the DNC-er. /p>

Senator Clinton is expected to make several high profile speeches in the weeks after March 10, when primary season wraps up. As well, she has been coordinating with Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle about picking floor fights with Republicans in the upcoming Senate session.

Meanwhile several longtime Clinton cronies, including adviser to both Bill and Hill Harold Ickes, are talking to labor leaders and grassroots supporters about a spring push intended to ratchet up pressure on the Democratic nominee to put her on the bottom of the ticket.

“Her fingerprints can’t be on this,” says the DNC staffer. “But we know what she’s doing. McAuliffe has talked to Bill about it. Everyone knows the drill.”