Bush's Lonely Election Season

Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006 By KAREN TUMULTY AND MIKE ALLEN
President George W. Bush attends a "John Doolittle for Congress" reception in Sacramento, California
BROOKS KRAFT / CORBIS FOR TIME
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IT'S THE PRESIDENT, STUPID

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For the moment, however, silver linings in the President's predicament are so scant around the White House that when a conservative commentator recently asked Bush to give him some good news, Bush replied, "You're talking to Noah about the flood." Even the President knows this election has become a national referendum on him and his performance. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 31% of those surveyed said they will use their congressional votes to register their opposition to Bush, which was almost double the percentage who said they felt that way before the last midterm. By comparison, only 17% said they plan to use their vote to show support for Bush. And Democrats are stoking that sentiment in ads like the one the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is running on television in Connecticut's Second District, in which an announcer intones: "Rob Simmons said he'd represent us, but George Bush always comes first." In fact, you are far more likely to see Bush in a Democratic ad this year than a Republican one. The President is now being featured in 89 separate TV commercials for Democratic House candidates nationwide. Says DCCC spokesman Bill Burton: "No other issue is that dominant."

Of course, the President and his party still have some built-in advantages. The gerrymandering of the past decade has turned the vast majority of congressional districts into fortresses for incumbents, to the point where the number of House seats in serious contention is only about three dozen, compared with roughly 100 in the 1994 landslide that brought the G.O.P. to power with a 54-seat pickup. And the Republicans retain their advantage in money and, most operatives on both sides agree, the pinpoint sophistication of their turnout operation among a conservative base in which Bush still has nearly 90% approval in most polls. But even Republicans fret their loyalists have been discouraged by the Mark Foley scandal, and can't match the Democrats in passion. That fervor is being fueled by the bare-knuckled veterans who are heading up their House and Senate campaigns—New York Senator Charles Schumer and Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel—who have been urging their candidates to punch back at Bush directly on national security. And they have. In Rhode Island, Democratic Senate nominee Sheldon Whitehouse has been running an ad in which he says, "We need to send a clear signal that, folks, we are really getting out" of Iraq. So upended is the political calculus that it is now Republicans like Senate majority leader Bill Frist who are urging their candidates to steer clear of the war in favor of pocketbook issues.

CAPITAL CONFLICT

So what does it mean if Washington does become a stage of sectarian conflict after Nov. 7? For one thing, most of Bush's legislative agenda could be bound for gridlock. White House officials still talk hopefully of expanding Bush's No Child Left Behind education legislation. Other issues for which they argue they could get some kind of bipartisan traction include moving toward energy independence, lowering health-care costs and measures to fight terrorism. Bush's advisers even talk of enlisting Democrats for some grand push for entitlement reform, although anything like Bush's disastrous effort to add private accounts to Social Security would seem out of the question, given his inability to get anywhere even with a Republican Congress.

One area in which the President and a Democratic Congress might be able to make common cause is the immigration bill that has been one of his signature issues. The Senate has gone along with Bush's comprehensive approach, which includes both tougher enforcement of the border and expanded legalization for immigrants who are already in this country. But the closest thing to an immigration policy to come out of House Republicans was a 700-mile "virtual fence" along the border—a politically expedient idea that, enacted on its own, leaves Bush with less to horse-trade in his efforts to get what he really wants, which is serious reform. With that in mind, White House officials resisted holding a signing ceremony on the fence bill. But House Republican leaders were so insistent that the White House finally agreed to a low-key event in the Roosevelt Room with just six minutes of presidential remarks.

As for what direction the Democrats are likely to take, much would depend on whether would-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decides the next two years are about revenge, or about governing—and whether she can keep her troops in line. "They listen to no one," she told Time earlier this year. "They don't even listen to each other." Pelosi's initial goals, which she says she wants to accomplish in the Democrats' first 100 legislative hours in power, are modest and relatively uncontroversial. She would have the House pass bills aimed at raising the minimum wage, cutting student-loan interest rates, allowing the Federal Government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients, and reforming lobbying practices.

Pelosi needs 15 seats to become the next Speaker, but if her majority is only a vote or two, she's not likely to get much further than her 100-hour plan. More conservative Democrats, many of them newly elected from Republican-leaning districts, would hold the balance of power. If the Democrats have a more comfortable majority, however, the party's edgier, angrier side could emerge, especially on the question of whether or how quickly to withdraw from Iraq. One of the early tests of which direction Pelosi would take could be an expected fight for majority leader between the current whip Steny Hoyer and Pennsylvania's John Murtha, who has become a hero to the antiwar left.

If lame-duck Presidents are to achieve anything, they often have to look for ways to go around Congress, especially when it is in the hands of the other party. Clinton used Executive Orders and his bully pulpit to encourage school uniforms, impose ergonomic rules on employers and prevent mining, logging and development on 60 million acres of public land. White House press secretary Tony Snow says Bush may take the same bypass around Capitol Hill. "He told all of us, 'Put on your track shoes. We're going to run to the finish,'" Snow said. "He's going to be aggressive on a lot of fronts. He's been calling all his Cabinet secretaries and telling them, 'You tell me administratively everything you can do between now and the end of the presidency. I want to see your to-do list and how you expect to do it.' We're going to try to be as ambitious and bold as we can possibly be."