FORMER VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE has done President Bush a favor that’s likely to have lasting political impact. In his speech at a Democratic dinner in Des Moines last Saturday, Gore declared Bush is his “Commander in chief.” He said it emphatically, and added: “We are united behind our president, George W. Bush.”
The effect was to end the Democrat-spawned controversy over Bush’s election last fall. Now Bush has been legitimized as president. We’ve heard the last of “selected, not elected,” the cherished cry of Democratic national chairman Terry McAuliffe. And there will be no more weeks on the best-seller list or guest spots on cable news shows for Alan Dershowitz or other die-hards who dispute the outcome of the presidential race.
This is significant. While most Americans long ago accepted Bush as the legitimate occupant of the White House, many Democrats were holdouts. This was especially true of blacks, an important Democratic constituency. Before the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, waving the bloody shirt of a stolen presidential election was a surefire way of arousing Democrats. And it was expected to drive up Democratic turnout in the midterm election in 2002 and perhaps in the presidential race in 2004. Some Democrats may still raise the issue, but only in private.
Another beneficiary of Bush’s legitimization is his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida. He was in reasonably good shape for reelection next year, but the flap over his administration’s role in the recount in Florida in the presidential contest last year was a nagging problem. Now that problem is over, and Bush is strongly favored to defeat the Democratic challenger, probably former attorney general Janet Reno, in 2002.
Even before September 11, President Bush was well on his way to being fully accepted as the rightful president. He’d won passage of a 10-year tax cut, and a watered-down education reform bill was moving slowly toward enactment. Then came the terrorist attacks, followed by Bush’s superb speech to Congress and the nation on September 20. Gore’s expression of support capped the legitimization.
Though that issue is out of the way, two others that might drain Bush’s political support are not. One is the economy, the other the war itself. At the moment, the economy is Osama bin Laden’s in other words, it was made worse by the attacks he ordered. But that will change once bin Laden is captured or killed. A year from now, the economy is likely to be seen as Bush’s, whether for good or ill. Unlike his father, President George H.W. Bush, in the Gulf war a decade ago, Bush is working to spur economic growth. His father agreed to raise taxes, slowing growth.
The other potential problem is how the war on terrorism is pursued. Bush knows the lesson of the Gulf war: The world would be a safer place today if Saddam Hussein of Iraq had been driven out of power in 1991. But Bush senior decided against that. For Bush junior now, the failure to target other terrorists after bin Laden is dealt with would generate the same criticism that he hadn’t finished the job. Beset with a bad economy and an incomplete war, Bush would see his 90 percent approval rating tumble. With a recovering economy and full war on terrorism, however, Bush would remain enormously popular.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
For bonus coverage, check out Weekly Standard contributing editor Robert Kagan’s op-ed “The Powell Papers” in the October 3, 2001 Washington Post.
