I'd have my campaign handlers (wordsmith division) come up with a suitable ear-pleaser to make the public worried about the rising tide of rudeness.

Early in the grueling election campaign, his campaign handlers created a format of "people's forums," in which Mr. Mandela and several other leaders fielded questions from the public.

That's right: Long before Dan Quayle's Murphy Brown speech, some presidential campaign handlers trying to dodge a bad economy stumbled upon a family value.

Indeed, Mr. Bush chose Mr. Sununu in a conscious effort to assert his independence from his campaign handlers, notably James Baker, whom he named Secretary of State.

That outlay, his campaign handlers acknowledged, was an attempt to overcome the Democrats' lead in voter registration.

But on a bad news day for a candidate, the campaign handlers might restrict that time.

After the election, unidentified sources in the Secret Service told The Hill that Bush had been wearing a bullet-proof vest and that campaign handlers had not admitted it earlier for security reasons.

"Because they have to pay for ads on New York and Philadelphia stations, the campaign handlers are wasting 70 cents on the dollar reaching viewers who can't vote in New Jersey."

Thomas Lincoln never thrived in Kentucky, but his son's campaign handlers and initial biographers sentimentalized his childhood.

This is why the public is eager to get past the campaign handlers and the managed messages.