This time, this President Bush is determined to play both roles to the hilt. The evidence is in his State of the Union address (watched by 63 million people) and in the political flowcharts of Karl Rove’s jokingly named but deadly serious “Office of Strategery.” Simply put, the Bush-Rove strategy is this: leverage popularity from what they hope will be a successful strike against Saddam Hussein to propel a series of sweeping proposals through a Republican-controlled Congress by year-end. It is not a “Wag the Dog” game plan, in which a phony war is launched as a distraction. In a way, it’s the opposite scenario, in which a president lays out an ambitious agenda in advance of war. “So if war comes,” says a top adviser, “when the war is over with, he will have much to return to”–and, Bush hopes, much to sell in 2004.
The president took Step One last week, hoisting a carefully calibrated series of proposals onto the slow-moving congressional conveyer belt. For “the base”– the Christian conservative activists–he renewed his support for “faith-based” welfare programs, for a slate of pro-life federal judges and for a ban on partial-birth abortion and cloning. For skeptical but perhaps enticeable voters in the middle, he expressed support for research on a hydrogen-powered car, for a $10 billion increase in spending on AIDS in Africa and for new money to treat drug addiction. For party insiders, he took a whack at trial lawyers, backing a law to limit jury awards. His biggest-ticket proposals aimed to show his commitment to kitchen-table issues for the whole country: a $674 billion tax cut and a prescription-drug benefit through Medicare.
The Democrats’ strategy also comes in two parts. At least in Washington, they are still giving the president wide latitude in his role as commander in chief. When Sen. Ted Kennedy demanded a new vote on Iraq, Democratic leader Tom Daschle demurred. Of the major Democratic presidential candidates, only the one who is not a member of Congress (former Vermont governor Howard Dean) denounces the president’s clear determination to oust Saddam.
Unwilling or unable to unite in opposition to the president on Iraq, Democrats did manage to launch coordinated airstrikes on his domestic proposals. Their main message: he talks a good game, but the combination of a new war and new tax cuts means he can’t put federal money where his mouth is. Democratic spin doctors cited a host of examples. Although the president touts his No Child Left Behind Act, he has yet to call for full funding of the program he champions. His budget proposals to enforce corporate ethics are far less than the bipartisan consensus those in Congress would prefer. While he has now become a champion of AIDS research and charity, Democrats point out that he blocked a special appropriation of $200 million for that purpose last year.
But the Democrats save their most vehement criticism for the centerpieces of Bush’s domestic agenda. His tax proposal–an end to taxation of dividends–isn’t popular, they note. His new budget (to be unveiled this week) projects huge deficits for years. And his drug benefit would be available only through HMOs. “Does he know that HMOs are among the most disliked institutions in the country?” asks Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic polltaker. (Evidently so: on a trip to Michigan last week that was supposed to feature his Medicare proposal, he ended up barely even discussing it.)
While the Democrats carp, White House officials look for ways to respond. They know they can’t use the president to grab the spotlight on domestic issues now. He will be busy talking about Iraq. Instead, they are planning to send cabinet secretaries and other officials on “narrowcasting” missions throughout the country. “Not everything has to appear in The New York Times and The Washington Post,” says a Republican strategist. “These other issues are important to get out there. When the time is right, the groundwork is laid.” The president himself will try to double-track as much as possible. This week, between mourning the fallen astronauts and discussing the Gulf, he will speak out on energy policy, new vaccination techniques and AIDS. “We know the construct is a daily story on Iraq,” says a White House aide. “It’s going to be the story.”
Privately, the president has issued a “not now” edict in response to inquiries from his advisers about whether he wants to take part in any re-election planning sessions. But that hasn’t stopped Rove & Co. They have meticulously examined the 2002 results–in which the GOP vote rose to 54 percent–and think they can replicate that showing. Changing population patterns alone, they point out, will give more Electoral College clout to the states Bush won in 2000. They strive not to be smug, but can’t hide their confidence. All they need is for the president to be right about a war with Iraq. But if he is wrong–if something goes haywire there, or in the aftermath in the Gulf–even Karl Rove might not be able to write a political game plan that can save the second Bush presidency.
