WASHINGTON, 26 February 2004 — For the House of Bush, elections are hardball. At regular intervals in the 1980s and early 1990s, that Republican country club gentleman George Herbert Walker Bush would disdainfully enter what he called “full campaign mode.” What he meant was the temporary abandonment of the lofty peaks of government for the down and dirty ritual of ensuring the family’s right to rule.
Thanks in good measure to a certain Lee Atwater, a campaign adviser with good ol’ boy manners and an unrivalled instinct for the political jugular, the tactic worked. In the 1988 presidential election, the political machine of Bush pere made mincemeat of the wretched Michael Dukakis. Similar tactics might have worked in 1992, had Atwater not died of a brain tumor the previous year, and the elder Bush not trusted so greatly in his family’s divine right — only to find himself up against Bill Clinton, the finest natural politician of the age.
Now it is the turn of the son, and the only difference is that the process has started much sooner. George H. W. Bush preferred to put off the distasteful necessity of “campaign mode” until the summer of election year. In his speech to Republican governors on Monday evening however, George W. Bush kicked off his campaign even before winter was done.
One reason for the early start is that the younger Bush is a much better politician than his father. There is, of course, another reason: The specter of what happened 12years ago. In 2000, the Bush restoration was secured. But a nightmare haunts this American dynasty. One single-term Bush presidency might be ascribed to carelessness. A second would be a family humiliation. All of a sudden, however, the prospect is not to be ruled out.
A couple of months ago, Bush appeared on a glide path to re-election. Now the picture is transformed. Dean is history. George W’s opponent will be a polished and practiced senator — most probably the gravitas-laden John Kerry of Massachusetts, just possibly the youthful and nimble John Edwards of North Carolina.
Much is in this Bush’s favor. He has the power of incumbency, and the economic cycle is much kinder. But the polls tell a different story.
An astonishingly positive primary season, in which the candidates have weighed into Bush rather than each other, has galvanized the Democrats, while Saddam’s non-existent WMD and the mess on the ground in Iraq have put the White House on the defensive. The president’s limp and fumbling performance in a TV interview that was supposed to set the record straight only made matters worse.
For the time being, at least, this Bush looks as vulnerable as his father. Gallup/CNN last week found that either Kerry or Edwards would win a presidential election today by 10 points. A single poll to be sure — but remember that since World War II, only Harry Truman among incumbents has overturned this sort of deficit at this stage in the electoral cycle.
Not surprisingly, the White House has moved up its counter-offensive from the early summer to now. And equally unsurprisingly, students of the Bush family’s political modus operandi are already predicting one of the roughest, nastiest elections in modern US history.
The technique was perfected by Bush pere, and will be followed by the son. Ensconced in the White House, the president will take the high ground, projecting competence, re-assurance and optimism. Meanwhile, his top political strategist Karl Rove and his minions — the Lee Atwaters of their day — will take care of the slash-and-burn side of proceedings.
In fact, John Edwards, with his southern charm, his cheerful message and relatively short career in Washington, is the Democrat the White House secretly fears the most. Kerry, though, is another matter. This Bush machine is confident it can take a wrecking ball to the latter’s candidacy.
Armed with a campaign war chest of $130 million and counting, the Bush campaign will seek to define Kerry in the same terms, very early and very vigorously. For Republican “opposition research” specialists, the thousands of votes cast by Kerry over two decades in the Senate already provide endless material to depict him as weak on national security and defense, and as a Dukakis redux on domestic policy. They will torture him on wedge issues like gay marriage, which split Democrats down the middle.
In his speech to the governors, the president served up an aperitif, not mentioning Kerry by name, but accusing him of waffling and flip-flopping on issues from Iraq to free trade. The contrast will be fleshed out by the television ad campaign that starts next week, promoting a serene and decisive president protecting the country from terrorists and wicked foreign dictators.
Kerry vows to fight back, brandishing his Vietnam medals, and surrounding himself with his “band of brothers” from the navy swift boats in the Mekong delta. But for Bushes, all is fair in election season.
Whether the hand of Rove and his underlings was behind the adultery smear against Kerry, and the doctored photos showing him alongside Jane Fonda, is unproven, and in any case neither has had much effect. No amount, however, of silver and bronze stars for valor may be enough to protect Kerry. John McCain, too, was a Vietnam hero. But when it seemed possible he might snatch the Republican nomination in 2000, that did not prevent surrogates of a candidate who spent that war in the Texas National Guard from portraying him as an enemy of veterans, and launching a slanderous whispering campaign about McCain’s private life.
Alternatively, consider the case of Democrat Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, yet lost his Senate seat in Georgia in the 2002 mid-term elections as Republicans ran a vicious campaign, claiming he was soft on security.
Yes, this Bush is vulnerable. The deceits over Iraq, as well as repeated and absurd claims about jobs and runaway deficits have eroded the reputation for trustworthiness that was his most precious political asset. But Democrats beware. When it comes to “full campaign mode”, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
