Why Bush's Security Pitch May Not Work This Time

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The issue is poisonous enough to have provoked a revolt by a few imperiled Republican candidates, who either have refused to follow the White House advice to beat the war drums or are modifying it drastically to try to save their skin. Representative Tom Reynolds of New York, chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, says that local issues are more important than national security. "The national media always asks, 'What's your national issue?'" says Reynolds. "We don't have a national issue." At least, that's his hope. Most of the Republicans in tough races who distance themselves from Bush do so subtly, by not inviting him in to campaign, for instance. Not so Mike Fitzpatrick, a Representative facing stiff opposition in Philadelphia, who sent out a mailer last month blaring "Mike Fitzpatrick to President Bush: 'America needs a better, smarter plan in Iraq.'"

Democrats, of course, agree. The G.O.P. has scourged the opposition as the party of cut and run, but that tack is of limited value when the Democratic leadership has reined in calls by members for a prompt withdrawal from Iraq and when most Americans no longer support the war. In any case, the Democrats are now playing offense on Iraq. The home page of Diane Farrell, a Democrat seeking to unseat Representative Christopher Shays in Connecticut, features a calculator for the cost of the war in Iraq that updates second by second--$313 billion and counting. In a crucial seat in New Mexico, challenger Patricia Madrid bought a TV ad chiding the incumbent, "Heather Wilson is on the Intelligence Committee, but she never questioned George Bush on the war--and she never said a word about how we've spent $300 billion there."

And it's not just Bush's handling of Iraq that Democrats are targeting but also the larger war on terrorism. Democrats have begun to echo a message template e-mailed to them by party leaders: "President Bush and his Republican Congress have not learned the lessons of 9/11 and, as a result of their failed policies in Iraq and in the War on Terror, America is less safe."

This is where the White House does not want Democrats to get traction. If Bush's Iraq policies are a tough sell with voters, at least he has enjoyed credibility as a terrorism fighter overall. During the summer, Republican consultants watching focus groups of married women with children, a sector that strongly supported Bush's re-election, found that the mothers often asked questions about Iraq like "Does this go on forever?" But if the women were reminded of Iraq in the context of a war on terrorism--say, by being shown a video of a plane flying into the World Trade Center--their opposition waned.

Which may help explain why the White House so excitedly trumpeted Bush's announcement last week that the Administration was transferring 14 high-profile al-Qaeda terrorists to the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Bush had to acknowledge that the 14 had been held in secret CIA facilities in undisclosed locations, a fact that had been reported and had generated international controversy. But the value for the Administration in bringing these men into the light was to remind Americans of the very real enemies they face.