Domestic Impact: Bush's Republican Guard

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George Bush proved last week that he's not reluctant to press an advantage on the battlefield -- and the same is true in the domestic political arena. With Bush's public approval rating having soared to around 90% since he declared victory, his handlers are already working to sustain that support into 1992 and translate it into Republican gains across the board. Their battle plan calls for at least three aggressive thrusts:

-- Exploit the vote by most congressional Democrats against the war by contrasting the Democrats' "carping pessimism" with Republican can-do confidence in America's armed forces, industrial competitiveness, schools and future role in the world.

-- Encourage the swelling national mood of celebration and renewed optimism as an engine to pull the economy out of recession and eliminate the only potential obstacle to Bush's re-election.

-- Recruit potential new Republican candidates for Congress and other offices from among the 539,000 returning heroes of the war against Iraq.

The President is attempting to appear above the fray. In declaring military success, he stressed that this was "not a time to gloat." Yet even as Bush's victory address was being composed, his chief of staff, John Sununu, was meeting with the half a dozen top Republicans who help plot political strategy and are known informally as the Wednesday Group. The day after the speech, Sununu summoned Republican lawmakers to the White House to consider ways to link Bush's foreign success to his domestic policy.

In fact, Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had already begun that effort in little-reported passages of recent speeches. "We hear so often how our kids and our schools fall short, and I think it's about time that we took note of some of the success stories," Bush said on Feb. 15 in a speech to the Massachusetts workers who built the Patriot missile system. "For years we've heard that antimissile defense won't work . . . Some people called it impossible. But you called it your job. And they were wrong and you were right."

Two days earlier, Cheney had told a business group, "It's important to remember that virtually every one of these ((weapons)) programs and systems was targeted somewhere along the line in the early stage of its development by critics." He added that observing highly competent U.S. soldiers in the gulf had left him "less pessimistic about our basic educational systems." Summarizing the Administration's new line of attack, Cheney said, "We need to be less critical of ourselves than we have been . . . We have done a better job as a nation than we often give ourselves credit for, and the proof of that is what we're able to do over there in the gulf today."

By lashing out at naysayers, says Republican Party spokesman Charles Black, Administration officials are highlighting "some of the policies that we've supported and that are proving successful despite the opposition of the Democrats." Says party chief of staff Mary Matalin: "The Democrats are going to try to beat us on domestic policy, but they're so divided that they can't speak with one voice and put forward a coherent plan of their own. They'll end up just complaining, and I don't think people want to hear that right now."