POLITICAL BRIEFING

MAGIC NUMBER: For all the sophistication of modern campaigns, the strategy behind them often can be easily boiled down. For Bush, it is a number: 270. . . . A plaque on the desk of Bush campaign manager Robert M. Teeter has made sure the figure--the bare minimum of electoral votes needed to win the presidency--is never far from the mind of the Republican team. Indeed, it has become an increasing preoccupation as the President’s strategists, forced to virtually concede several states to the Democrats, have struggled to plot a victory formula. . . . For the bleary-eyed aides who gather in Teeter’s Washington office early each morning, the plaque has become something of a totem. “We stare at it,” senior adviser Charles Black said the other day, “so we never lose sight of our goals.”