BUSH WOMEN WORRIED

BUSH WOMEN WORRIED
By VINCENT MORRIS

March 15, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - First lady Laura Bush and the president's mother, Barbara Bush, are now openly "questioning" the direction of President Bush's campaign team, a stunning new report claims.

With national polls showing the once-invincible Bush in a dead heat against Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the two powerful Bush women are among many White House advisers fearful that the 2004 re-election team isn't up to the task.

Barbara Bush "does not want to see her family go through a '92 thing again," according to two well-connected Bush aides quoted in Time magazine.

The Time report notes a series of missteps and challenges facing the Bush-Cheney re-election team as it heads into the fall campaign season. One recent blunder came last week when Bush was excitedly preparing to appoint Nebraska millionaire Anthony Raimondo as his new national "jobs czar." But Bush had to backtrack when Kerry pointed out that the man laid off 75 U.S. workers in 2002 to build a $3 million factory in China.