Students for Bush gather to begin campaign push

Although polls of Michigan voters show presidential hopeful George W. Bush holding a commanding lead over the rest of the Republican field, the Texas governor's grassroots campaign in the state is just beginning to get off the ground.

While Bush's Michigan campaign chair, Republican Gov. John Engler, has lined up nearly all of the state's political leadership behind Bush, the East Lansing campaign office has yet to get furniture for its growing staff.

"I have the phone number but the phone isn't hooked up yet," Mandy Collins, a field representative for the state campaign, said last night at the first mass meeting for the Students for Bush group at the University.

To maintain the campaign's momentum through the Feb. 22 GOP primary and the November election, Collins said Bush supporters across the state need to mobilize. Michigan will be the first major state to hold a primary this spring.

"I don't want anyone to think that Michigan is done - that we've won it," Collins said. "We're going to be kind of the springboard for the rest of the nation. We want to win big here."

One of the campaign's first goals is to set up Students for Bush groups on every university campus in the state, Collins said, although she was unsure which schools do not have groups organized already.

"We're going to get really rolling in the next couple of weeks," she said.

Only about 15 students attended last night's meeting, but Students for Bush co-Chair John Carter, an LSA first-year student, said the group collected 85 names at its recruitment table on the Diag yesterday. "We're expecting to get quite a bit of involvement coming up," he said.

Like Collins, Carter rallied supporters by speaking in terms of "when" - not "if" - Bush will regain the White House for Republicans.

"Gov. Bush is going to be the next president of the United States. But he's going to need a lot of help," Carter said.

Students for Bush co-Chair Adam Killian, an LSA junior, said Bush's gubernatorial experience would make for a smooth transition into the presidency. If Texas were an independent nation, he said, it would have the world's 11th largest economy.

"Texans are serious about only two things - football and politics," said Killian, a native of Plano, Texas.

In January, a group of Bush supporters from the University plans to travel to Iowa for a last-ditch campaign blitz before the state's Jan. 24 first-in-the-nation caucus. At least 35 students have signed up for the all-expenses paid trip, Carter said.

If Bush wins the Republican nomination, Students for Bush plans to work with the campus College Republicans on the "1,000 for 2000" campaign, in which they hope to register 1,000 conservative voters for the 2000 elections.

Students for Bush co-Chair Yvonne Humenay, an LSA sophomore, said the two groups have to remain autonomous until after the primaries because College Republicans can't endorse one GOP candidate over another.

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