The Less-Than-Inevitable Bush
BARNES, FRED
The Less-Than-Inevitable Bush His first debate showed that George W Bush could have a tough road ahead. BY FRED BARNES A BUSH ADVISER was asked recently what's likely to happen in the months...
...His goal was to put across his personality, market his agenda, and respond amiably to criticism...
...Rather than cause political heartburn for social conservatives, an important constituency in the primaries, Bush said he wouldn't meet with gay Republicans...
...Bush spent the '70s, '80s, and early '90s in the oil business and running a baseball team...
...Bush didn't blunder, his opponents barely nicked him, so the march to the White House remains on track...
...BY FRED BARNES A BUSH ADVISER was asked recently what's likely to happen in the months leading up to next November's presidential election...
...A final thing we've discovered about Bush is that he suffers from not having played the national political game as long as McCain, Forbes, Keyes, Gary Bauer, and Orrin Hatch...
...But we've learned a lot about Bush and his campaign in November and December that suggests otherwise...
...Before New Hampshire, he'd been in only two gubernatorial debates in Texas...
...More telling still is the Bush tax cut plan...
...Bush wants to deter further assaults by Forbes, which might harm him and wind up aiding McCain...
...But little of his personality came across in the debate...
...His economics advisers spent eight months working up Bush's tax plan, and it fits nicely with his claim to be a compassionate conservative...
...There's another debate on December 13 and at least two more in January...
...Now, people are beginning to see him in action...
...He failed on the first two counts...
...And here's the threat Bush faces...
...So far, he's been largely an idea to most voters, not a flesh-and-blood candidate...
...Anyone who's spent time with Bush knows he's relaxed and extremely likable...
...Nothing," he said...
...They're just not sold on him yet...
...60 million...
...When McCain outlined his own foreign policy views on December 1, they were an echo of Bush's...
...One reason Bush delighted in embarrassing Forbes is that he intensely dislikes him...
...He soothed conservatives by cutting marginal income tax rates and eliminating what Lawrence Lindsey, Bush's chief economics adviser, calls "the biggest supply-side constraints in the tax code...
...Here's something to think about: If Bush can't shine in a debate with his Republican foes, imagine what will happen in a one-on-one matchup next fall with Al Gore, a clever and ruthless politician who's never lost a debate...
...True, Bush continues to rack up endorsements, the latest from senators Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island...
...and Robert Kennedy...
...Soon after Bush spoke, his aides handed out copies of the Forbes article to reporters...
...To complete the sale, Bush will have to do more than just avoid mistakes...
...And at least in his first debate, he didn't awe anyone...
...Bush's greatest strength is that he has staffed up like a shadow government, with a strong team of experienced, savvy, smart advisers...
...The Bush camp cast his adequate but hardly impressive performance in the New Hampshire debate on December 2 in the context of this rosy view of Bush's prospects...
...Nor was he effective in spelling out his tax plan, which he'd announced just two days before...
...Now, however, we know these positives aren't the whole story...
...May be it does...
...Even as Texas governor, he hasn't been deeply involved in the national political conversation...
...No, debates aren't everything in a presidential campaign, but they matter enormously...
...Against five GOP presidential candidates who've been sparring for months, Bush looked cautious and programmed...
...He's raised more than Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...He's not as quick or comfortable in answering questions as the others...
...But Reagan had been obsessed with national issues since his days as an actor...
...Bush read from a 22-year-old article in which Forbes said the age threshold for Social Security might have to be raised—exactly the position Forbes had been attacking Bush for...
...So long as Bush avoids mistakes, victory is all but inevitable...
...What they knew about him was that he was the son of a former president and a very popular GOP governor who appeared likely to beat any Democratic opponent next November...
...He has the luxury of losing an early primary or two, which his strongest challenger, John McCain, doesn't...
...He has plenty of time to recover...
...He doesn't have much to say...
...Why else would he go out of his way to zing Steve Forbes, his chief critic, in the debate...
...But his advisers can't help him during nationally televised debates...
...These affect lower income workers as they earn more and give up benefits from the Earned Income Tax Credit...
...The idea is that George W. Bush is such a strong front-runner he'll glide through the Republican primaries, then defeat a damaged Democratic nominee with relative ease...
...With their help, his policy speeches have been dazzling...
...The tax plan, says Lindsey, is one Bush "can run on, win on, and enact...
...Those were snaps...
...This shows when he's on his own in a debate...
...For one thing, even Bush acts as if the GOP nomination is not simply his for the asking...
...They've been yapping about domestic and foreign policy issues for decades...
...We've also learned that Bush, at the moment anyway, is not a skillful or appealing debater...
...And he's helped by the fact that voters want to like him...
...He needs practice...
...His address delivered a month ago at the Reagan Library in California was the most impressive foreign policy statement of 1999 by any candidate, Democrat or Republican...
...His policy statements and proposals are sound and politically attractive...
...Bush's debates were with Ann Richards and Gary Mauro...
...There's a larger motive, too...
...Long before he ran for office, he debated these issues with national figures like William F. Buckley Jr...
...He laughs off criticism by Alan Keyes, but he watched a tape of a November 21 debate in Tempe (Bush didn't participate) and was offended by Forbes's sneering attacks...
...Bush supporters have likened him to Reagan: Both were governors who gained political office as a second career...
...Like his foreign policy, it aims to please conservative voters who dominate the primaries...
...In his Meet the Press interview on November 21, Bush tilted to the right on nearly every issue where he didn't have a pre-cooked position...
Vol. 5 • December 1999 • No. 13
