George W. Bush was a newcomer to national politics in the last campaign. Cheney had been President Ford's chief of staff, represented Wyoming in Congress and was Defense secretary for Bush's father.

In the three years since Bush and Cheney took office, their images have been rewritten. Bush has managed wars and learned the ways of Washington. Cheney has gone underground, where he works on a few issues of his choosing and warns of worst-case events in the war on terrorism.

Cheney also is viewed by critics as the man responsible for the administration's penchant for secrecy and a hard-liner who helped drag Bush into war with Iraq (news - web sites). Halliburton, the company he once headed, is being investigated for its lucrative Pentagon (news - web sites) contracts. Some people wonder whether Cheney will be an asset or a liability in this campaign.

"If you're a rich, fat white guy, he's your hero," says Paul Begala, a former adviser to President Clinton (news - web sites) and frequent Bush critic. "But he's a very controversial guy. This is what comes with being the most powerful vice president in history."

Cheney's clout is not in doubt. The vice president, 62, has unprecedented access to - and influence on - the 57-year-old president.

Cheney prefers to wield his power in private, but he is gingerly returning to the spotlight as he embarks on what he insists is his last campaign. Reporters were invited to travel with him last week on the West Coast. He gave his first newspaper interviews in two years.

Politics is behind his emergence: Bush strategists believe it's time for Cheney to move from undisclosed secure locations to the front lines of the campaign, and a little image repair is in order.

A reluctant campaigner

So Cheney spent last week raising money for the Bush campaign and for Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev. He gave a somber speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council in which he compared the war on terrorism to the challenges faced by President Truman at the beginning of the Cold War. He received California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) in his hotel suite. He spoke to veterans in Arizona. And he visited NASA (news - web sites)'s Jet Propulsion Laboratories here to celebrate the Mars rover mission.

After speaking to a few hundred NASA employees on Wednesday and gamely holding a blue Mars rover shirt in front of his torso for photographers, Cheney even shook dozens of workers' hands before climbing into his black limousine.

He was never an expansive campaigner. "In Wyoming you campaign sort of one vote at a time. They don't like a lot of flash," he said in an interview with USA TODAY and the Los Angeles Times. "Solid, serious conversation is sort of what I'm about anyway."

Cheney speaks in a hurtling monotone rumble. His 38-minute speech and question-and-answer session at the World Affairs Council was interrupted by applause just three times. But he usually tosses some wry humor into his remarks. He assured NASA workers, "Don't worry, I did not touch the controls."

Cheney shrugs off questions about his image. He spends a lot of time negotiating with Congress, he said, and it's helpful not to talk about it publicly. Instead of heading for every TV camera, he said, "I just wave, smile and keep going."

"I don't have any reason to go out and worry about what may be said about me in the press," he said.

Much of what's been said about Cheney has been unflattering. His refusal to reveal names of industry executives who advised his task force on energy policy triggered a court fight that's still causing problems for Bush. Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) went duck hunting with Cheney this month after the Supreme Court agreed to decide the case, raising conflict-of-interest questions.

'Never out of sync'

Last fall, Bush took the unusual step of publicly correcting Cheney. On NBC's Meet the Press in September, Cheney said "it's not surprising" the public would believe that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, and there was a "relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back" through much of the 1990s. Three days later, Bush told reporters there's "no evidence" Saddam was involved.

"Nobody understands" the dynamic between Cheney and Bush, said Mary Matalin, a former Cheney counselor who still advises him. "Cheney is never out of sync with the president," she said. "He has a point of view and he makes it known. But he never gets out in front of the president - unless the president tells him to."

For now, the president seems to want Cheney to gear up for combat with Democratic presidential candidates. Bush is coy about his rivals, but Cheney's not.

Asked if he'll aggressively counter Democratic critics as the campaign heats up, a traditional campaign role for vice presidents, Cheney said, "I'm perfectly happy to do that."