"We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."

A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."

He called [Osama bin Laden's latest tape] "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection...

President George W. Bush has engaged in mailings [in Pennsylvania] which contain myriad graphic images of the burning World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 ...there are nine images of the front pages of Sept. 12, 2001 newspapers… all of which display the smoking towers of the World Trade Center before they collapsed, killing some 2,600 people. One includes the approach of the plane...

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.—"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States..."

A Republican National Committee practice of having people sign a form endorsing President Bush or pledging to vote for him in November before being issued tickets for RNC-sponsored rallies is raising concern among voters...

72-year-old retiree John Wade of Albuquerque, who was asked to sign the form when he picked up his tickets. "I just wanted to hear what my vice president had to say, and they make me sign a loyalty oath."

...Wade said he filled out the form, was given two tickets, but had second thoughts about signing an endorsement he didn't believe in. Wade said he explained his misgivings to a supervisor, and the form was quickly located. The supervisor wrote ''Do Not Use" on the form, but Wade insisted it be given to him. In the end, Wade said, he offered to give back his tickets in exchange for the endorsement, which he did.

"Sure I'm a Democrat and I'll go head to head with you one on one, but I would never disrupt a speech by the vice president," Wade says...

On July 4, Jeff and Nicole Rank went to hear George W. Bush speak in Charleston, West Virginia. Tickets in hand, they found seats ten or 15 rows from the stage. There they sat, quietly, wearing t-shirts that read love america, hate bush and regime change starts at home. Forty-five minutes before the president took the podium, event staffers approached the couple and said, "You need to either take those shirts off or leave." According to The San Antonio Express-News, Jeff Rank replied, "People around us have Bush-Cheney t-shirts, pro-Bush t-shirts. Why can't we express our views?" The staffers left, but a few minutes later, two police officers arrived and told the couple to "cover up, take them [the t-shirts] off or leave completely." The Ranks refused, at which point they were handcuffed, expelled from the event, and briefly thrown in prison. With the Ranks safely off the premises, Bush addressed the crowd, declaring that "on the Fourth of July, we confirm our love of freedom, the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to worship as they so choose. Free thought and free expression, that's what we believe." Two days later, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Nicole Rank's employer, told her that, as a result of the incident, she was being dismissed from her assignment in West Virginia...

The absolute last straw for me took place at the Bush rally, held in Central Point, Oregon on October 14th...

Three local teachers got tickets to the Bush rally, passed all the security checkpoints and scrutiny and got in. They never created or caused a disturbance, and they were perfectly peaceful members of the audience waiting to hear Bush speak. But before they got to hear Bush, they were expelled from the rally by Bush rally staff who objected to the words printed on the T-shirts they were wearing...

...the T-shirts the three women wore showed an American flag, and under it the words, "Protect Our Civil Liberties".