f I'm George W., I'm a happy camper four months out.
I'm cooking on all burners and that Tex-Mex barbecue is smoking. It's almost time for the Five Alarm Chili sauce. That'll come in Philadelphia at the convention just two weeks ahead. I can't wait.
Al Gore is fumbling around with his let's-try-this-theme-today-and-keep-trying-till-I-hit-one-that-works. There's some polling daylight between me and him - I can say me and him even though I went to Andover and Yale and Harvard Business School - and all my experts tell me I'm gonna have a lot happier convention than Al will. And I get to go first.
I had a pretty darn good week. Raised some more cash - we'll go over $100 million in a matter of days - and that's not even counting the federal subsidy that kicks in. I'll smother Gore on TV the rest of the summer, but only in those states where I'm competitive.
I have to smile and grin and say, ''You're gosh darn right we'll contest California and New York.'' But no way we'll blow any significant slice of our stake on those sure loser states. And I just hope Gore's crowd is dumb enough to think they can do any business in Texas or Florida. Go ahead, boys, make my day. Spend some of your dwindling bundle on those two states. Hah!
We've got our convention wired. My people say we won't have anywhere near the trouble in the streets the Democrats are facing in Los Angeles. God, I hope those people who were rioting in Seattle will show up tanned and rested for LA. Philadelphia should be a cakewalk by comparison. Those hundred demonstrators who dogged Gore's headquarters in Nashville are just a taste of what Old Al has waiting for him.
My people have done everything right for our little shindig. No former presidents giving speeches - no Gerry Ford, no Gipper, not even my dad. That should help quash this ''dynasty'' bull. I'll just wave to Mom and Pop up there in the gallery; the TV will love that.
And our people are under orders: no whining about the shrinking major network coverage. We don't need that, the Democrats do. We're happy if we just have a totally controlled environment. Let the C-Span and CNN junkies nibble away at this and that. Our paid advertising will swamp Gore's, and the less network TV exposure his crowd gets, the better for us.
We think there's a pretty good chance the Democrats' show will feature a lot of rock-tossing and street fights between the demonstrators and the LA cops. That'll help us bigtime if it's anywhere even half of what Chicago '68 was.
I've gotta admit I caught some breaks. John McCain took us over the coals pretty good back in February and March. But he's calmed down, and the way he's going around making speeches for Republican candidates, he's helping us tremendously. Gore got nothing out of Bill Bradley these last four months. No love lost there, I guess. Well, McCain and I ain't exactly buddies either. But I got a heck of a lot more out of McCain's endorsement than Gore will get from Bradley's.
My ''compassionate conservative'' pitch has legs. I got a decent reception at the NAACP convention. I know there's no votes there for me. But the picture was worth millions in free advertising, me and the black folks, and them being so polite and applauding some. Bob Dole was dumb to skip their convention four years ago.
It's like my handlers keep stressing to me: Keep reaching out; it's crucial you be presented as a reach-out guy, not a shut-the-door Republican. And it's working. I sort of figure that I start out with 40 percent of the vote, and Gore starts out with 40 percent of the vote, and then we scrap over the 20 percent that's left. And how we get 11 of that 20, or 12 of it, is what the deal is all about.
We're looking at New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio - God, I'd give anything to get Ohio. I get three of those five, they tell me I'm home free, when you figure I've got a lock on Texas and Florida and the mountain states and most of the South. I'll have to decide within the next week who's going to be No. 2 on my ticket.
All those media types keep talking up McCain. He'll be lucky. I think Old John-Boy is just a tad too frisky for my tastes, all that public financing baloney, and running off at the mouth about pork-barrel politics. I'm trying to find a reason not to pick Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania. He's a popular governor, big in the party, he's a Vietnam war hero.
The right-wingers will get all worked up because he's prochoice. But he's only barely prochoice. I can sell him to the convention without too much trouble. And he's a Catholic. That's huge in those five battleground states. So let the prolifers rant and rave; they've got nowhere else to go.
Pat Buchanan is barely on the horizon. Right now Ralph Nader looks like he takes more from Gore in the states where trade is an issue with labor than Pat takes from me in the heartland. I'll take that swap any day.
So I just keep my fingers crossed that no scandal pops up that we didn't anticipate. I'll have to do tolerably well in the debates, but I can handle that. There's no doubt going to be some more shootouts that will bring the gun business up all over again. And the crowd yapping about the death penalty will be outside every rally I hold. But if I had to choose between my problems and Gore's, I'd take mine every time.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
