A One-Man Earthquake

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How did this happen? Bush was determined not to make his father's fatal mistake of neglecting the conservative Republican base. Instead, he may have repeated the near fatal one Bill Clinton made in his first two years in office. Having run as a centrist who could forge a new bipartisan middle, Bush--like Clinton--started governing in a way that seemed rather to cater to his party's extreme. Where Clinton had gays in the military and Hillarycare, Bush had Arctic drilling, global warming, a Vice President who scoffs at conservation and a hard-right Attorney General, John Ashcroft. As Jeffords announced his decision to become an independent, the Senator who traces his family's Republican roots back to the days of Lincoln said, "Looking ahead, I see more and more instances where I will disagree with the President on very fundamental issues--the issues of choice, the direction of the judiciary, tax and spending decisions, missile defense, energy and the environment and a host of other issues, large and small."

What forced Clinton back to the center, of course, was the landslide 1994 election that turned both houses of Congress over to the Republicans for the first time in 40 years. He resculpted his presidency in the image of his campaign, working budget deals with the Republicans, passing welfare reform with them, leaving his party behind when it wouldn't come along.

Now that Bush has suffered a one-man version of 1994, some moderate politicians are hoping he will make a similar mid-course correction. But for now at least, the Bush White House rejects the comparison and promises no changes. This was no national referendum, Administration officials say, just one wobbly liberal who decided to walk off the end of the pier--perhaps, they suggest, to salvage a chairmanship he was slated to lose in 18 months under Senate rules. "This is a guy who said he found it impossible to support an agenda that the President has spent two years talking about," says Bush strategist Karl Rove. And it is true that on the issue that Jeffords cares most about--education--Bush has moved to the left, cutting deals with Ted Kennedy and abandoning vouchers. White House communications director Karen Hughes says Jeffords "was quite comfortable remaining in the Republican Party when the leaders talked about abolishing the Department of Education, but he's not comfortable with a President committed to education."

Those arguments ignore the fact that many of Bush's most conservative agenda items were hidden away in the campaign's fine print and covered over by his big messages about moderation and helping the little guy. His compassionate rhetoric masked his conservatism, but five months of decision making have pulled off the mask.

If all that has just dawned on Jeffords, he has plenty of company. The TIME/CNN poll shows public disapproval of the job Bush is doing has climbed 14 points since early February, to 38%; nearly half of those polled say they are somewhat or very unlikely to vote for him next time--about the same percentage that felt that way about Clinton at this point in his first term.