Are we about to witness a father-son version of “Groundhog Day”? This Bush ended 2001 as a popular commander in chief with sky-high approval ratings, a new sense of mission and a Republican Party flush with money. And yet Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was bullish. “We’re going to have a great 2002!” he declared.
McAuliffe once rassled an alligator and later raised millions for President Bill Clinton. He’s as cautious as a carnival barker. Still, he has a case–or at least half of one–about 2002. It won’t necessarily be a stellar year for Democrats. But it’s likely to be stormy for Bush, who’ll have to spend his horde of political capital to stay afloat. The question is: on what? He’ll still have a war to fight, and domestic security to guard. But aides are planning major initiatives on the economy and on social-welfare reform. “They need to stay ahead of the curve,” said a top adviser to the White House.
The war on terrorism, the president himself admits, will become progressively more complex, with options–such as whether to go after Saddam Hussein–less clear-cut. Most voters expect another terrorist attack. If and when it comes, Americans will look closely–and skeptically–at what the Bush administration did, or did not, do to stop it.
The physics of politics are unforgiving. No president can defy the laws of gravity forever; Bush’s “numbers” will head downward sooner or later. When they do, it’ll be open season. The eerie calm that enveloped Washington after September 11 had already begun to evaporate by the time Congress left town for Christmas. The patriotic urge toward unity in foreign affairs directs contention elsewhere, generating strident debates on domestic issues instead. Tom Daschle led the Democratic majority in the Senate into a taxes-versus-spending showdown–a prelude to battles with Bush in 2002, in which Clinton, who’s busy trying to rehabilitate himself, is expected to play a large role.
The war itself is GOP turf, but the events of 9-11 changed the terms of debate in the Democrats’ favor. War is a Washington-based enterprise. Twenty years after the Reagan Revolution made “federal” an epithet, big government is good again, or at least the guarantor of safety. President Bush suddenly finds himself touting the “federalization” of airport security and agreeing to pour billions of dollars in federal aid into New York City. If the Feds are the answer again, Democrats will argue, why aren’t they the answer to voters’ deep concerns about health care and retirement?
Post-9-11 America is suffused with a community spirit. Bush thinks he can channel it into his proposals for “faith based” social welfare, in which private charities are paid federal tax money to perform public-welfare work. But Democrats see an opportunity to champion Social Security and Medicare at a time when both programs will be under new pressure. The war on terror will drain money from the Treasury, even as the recession–and the Bush tax cut–cut receipts. Deficits, everyone agrees, are back. If President Bush tries to balance the books by “reforming” Social Security–and he’ll have no choice but to try, given the math–expect war to break out.
Meanwhile Democrats are planning a daring assault on the most critical turf in politics: the cultural mainstream. The theory goes like this. Our enemy in Afghanistan is religious extremism and intolerance. It’s therefore more important than ever to honor the ideals of tolerance–religious, sexual, racial, reproductive–at home. The GOP is out of the mainstream, some Democrats will argue next year, because it’s too dependent upon an intolerant “religious right.” This is an incendiary battle plan–essentially comparing the GOP right with the Taliban–designed to draw an outraged response from the president. Then Democrats would have Bush just where they wanted him: in a fire fight at home.
