THE NEW YORK CITY CONVENTION was a smashing success. The Bush campaign and the White House should seize upon the convention’s lesson and apply it to win this vital election. The lesson is obvious–the campaign is about President Bush and when we focus on making the case for his reelection, he sells just fine.

Since January, the president has stumbled politically. At times he has seemed small in the demanding presidential frame, and his campaign has difficulties with message. It has been as if the president’s campaign has lost some faith in their candidate, become timid and defensive, and opted to follow the easiest path for a campaign with vast resources and doubts about the attractiveness of its own candidate: hammer the other guy and hope the voters decide to hate him worse.