They're All Bushies Now?: In a lot of states, Daschle Democrats are thin on the ground.

The politician appearing most frequently in campaign ads this election season won't be appearing on any ballots. Candidate A features President Bush at a signing ceremony in a TV spot that takes credit for "working with President Bush to pass historic new tax cuts." Another of his ads includes a clip of the president praising him for helping to pass a trade bill. Candidate B is pictured visiting with President Bush in the Oval Office and highlights his support of the president's education reforms. Candidate C explains that he helped Bush reduce welfare rolls. Candidate D brags that the farm bill he backed won "the signature of President Bush," and Candidate E wants voters to know that she "voted for President Bush's defense budget."

Members of a popular president's party could be expected to showcase their leader-but these candidates who are so closely hugging the president on the campaign trail are Democrats: in Montana, Georgia, Texas, Iowa, and Missouri. In this year's competitive races, Bush Democrats are far more plentiful than Daschle Democrats.

"No matter what happens, we're going to have a Bush majority," Mitch Bainwol, the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, whimsically notes in response to the ubiquitous presence of President Bush in the ads of Democratic Senate candidates. "The only question is whether or not it's a real one."

In a recent appearance in Atlanta to boost the chances of a real Bush majority, the president acknowledged the Democrats' clutch for his coattails. "A couple of citizens from this great state told me my picture seems to be on the TV screen a lot. That a lot of people are using my image during the campaign. Well, I'm here to clarify a few things." He went on to provide some nice tape footage for Sen. Max Cleland's GOP challenger. "The voters shouldn't be confused. For the sake of Georgia, for the sake of the United States, Saxby Chambliss needs to be the next United States senator."

Cleland-the "Candidate B" whose ads feature his photo with Bush-touts his support for the president's education reforms and tax cuts, and blankets the airwaves with testimonials from the state's popular junior senator, conservative Democrat Zell Miller. Rep. Chambliss says he expects that the facts will trump the photos. "When Max Cleland was elected [to replace Sam Nunn], folks thought they were sending another conservative Democrat to Washington. We've shown how liberal his voting record is." Chambliss is referring to a series of 10-second ads in which his campaign highlighted Cleland's liberal votes on issues ranging from abortion and the Boy Scouts to taxes. While Cleland did vote for Bush's tax cut, Republican ads claim that he has supported 116 tax increases; and Chambliss hammers away at the fact that while "Zell Miller sides with the president on homeland security, Cleland sides with the union bosses." There has not been a Senate vote on final passage of Bush's homeland-security plan, but the GOP ads highlight eleven votes Cleland cast against it in committee and on the Senate floor.

In his appearance on behalf of Georgia GOP candidates, Bush criticized the Senate's failure to make his tax cuts permanent, to pass an energy bill, and to approve the homeland-security department. His declaration that the Senate had a "lousy record" on confirming his judicial nominees won the crowd's loudest applause. Bush even took a rare partisan jab by specifying that it is "Senate Democrats" who want to prevent his proposed new federal department from having the needed flexibility to hire, transfer, and fire employees.

Gene Ulm, the Chambliss campaign's pollster, isn't surprised that Cleland is trying to run a "George Bush and me" campaign-given that the president enjoys a 70 percent ...