GEORGE W. BUSH has met Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, exactly once. That was at the funeral of Republican senator Paul Coverdell of Georgia last July. Bush has never met Dick Gephardt, the House Democratic boss. So, obviously, he’s never done any political, legislative, or public policy business with either of them. Bush will soon have to, assuming he becomes president on January 20. Which leads to the fundamental question he’ll face in dealing with Congress: How much should he collaborate with, offer concessions to, or compromise with the two Democratic congressional leaders?
As he figures out the answer, Bush will keep three goals of his presidency in mind. He aims to achieve all three at once, and Daschle and Gephardt won’t make that easy. The first goal is to produce tangible results, including signing legislation passed by a Congress in which Republicans have only the tiniest of majorities. The second is to hold onto his political base, which consists chiefly of conservatives — and social conservatives in particular. The third is to create a new, more amicable tone in Washington.
Achieving one and three might be easy. He could forget his campaign issues (tax cuts, Social Security reform, vouchers, missile defense) and embrace the Democratic agenda (prescription drug benefit, patients’ bill of rights, campaign finance reform). This would alienate his base, and it would please Daschle and Gephardt and thrill the media, which would declare a joyful new era of cooperation in Washington. But Bush has seen firsthand the grief this might bring. His father, President Bush, broke his no-new-taxes pledge and his promise to cut capital gains taxes, and he went along with stringent Clean Air Act revisions, the budget deal of 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The GOP base soured on him, he got no credit from Democrats, and he lost the White House to Bill Clinton in 1992.
Goals one and two (get results and please conservatives) are also attainable. The risk is infuriating Daschle, Gephardt, and the Democratic hordes, putting the press in a tizzy, and failing to lighten the mood inside the Beltway. These may be risks worth taking, but Bush doesn’t plan to take them.
Instead, as best I can tell, Bush favors a two-track strategy in which he will fight Daschle and Gephardt and woo them at the same time. At the very least, this is the preferred strategy of the two members of Congress most influential with Bush at the moment, representatives Roy Blunt of Missouri and Rob Portman of Ohio. Blunt was the House GOP’s liaison to the Bush campaign, and Portman is close to Bush, having served on the White House staff of Bush Sr. How would a two-track scheme work? Bush would cherry-pick Democrats to vote for popular conservative measures that cleared Congress but were vetoed by President Clinton or got bottled up on Capitol Hill. Simultaneously, he’d negotiate with Democratic leaders on big issues — Social Security, Medicare, education — on which their cooperation is critical.
For weeks now, Karl Rove, Bush’s chief strategist, has been seeking advice from conservatives and Republicans on how Bush might govern in a bipartisan fashion from a GOP base. One person he talked to was conservative Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist offered up a list of 10 items of “conservative legislation” that have “broad bipartisan support.” Included were repeal of the marriage penalty, the death tax, and the excise tax on phones, a ban on partial-birth abortion, bankruptcy reform, expansion of IRAs, and the Medicare reform proposal of Democratic senator John Breaux of Louisiana. What’s striking is that Blunt wants to move on the same bills.
“There are Democrats who are eager to be with Republicans on specific issues,” says Blunt. Roughly 60 to 80 House Democrats “form the universe” from which votes can be plucked. Only one or two dozen members might become part of a moderate-conservative coalition, Blunt says, and “a constantly changing cast of characters” would defect from the Democratic caucuses and support various Bush-backed legislation. In the House, the cherry-pick tactic will work, he insists. “We can do whatever we need to in the House.” Republicans control the House, 222-213. Making headway in the Senate, tied at 50-50, would be far more difficult.
For Bush, the danger in fighting Daschle and Gephardt on these issues is that it might chill prospects for bipartisan collaboration on other issues. Daschle, in an interview last week with Morton Kondracke of Roll Call, suggested as much. “If he tried to peel off Democrats, it could be divisive, and it hasn’t worked in the past,” Daschle said. Bush’s tone in claiming victory on November 26, the senator said, “appeared more confrontational than I wished it had been.” Among other things, Bush said he’d “work with members of Congress from both parties to reduce tax rates for everyone who pays income taxes in America.” Daschle said the tax issue would be “a tough nut [for Bush] to crack.” Gephardt, too, thinks picking off Democrats on conservative issues would clash with what he calls “genuine bipartisanship.”
What Daschle and Gephardt have in mind would be Bush’s negotiations on most issues, as President Eisenhower did in the 1950s with House speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson. “Before I leave here, I’d like to experience something like that,” Daschle told Kondracke. He said Bush should establish regular meetings with Democratic congressional leaders. “If we’re going to wipe the slate clean, this kind of thing would help.”
Bush can work around Gephardt, but not Daschle. It takes 60 votes to kill a filibuster in the Senate, and Republicans would have trouble mustering a minimum of 10 Democrats. But Portman, whose wife once worked for Daschle, thinks it might not come to that. “I think Tom Daschle is someone a President Bush can work with. As majority leader, he carried a lot of water for President Clinton, and he did well, just as Bob Dole did for President Bush. But this will be a different time, and George Bush will be a different type of president. He will reach out, and I think Tom Daschle will respond.” Blunt wonders if Bush, in cultivating Daschle, might “pull a Bullock on him.” In Texas, Bush became close friends with lieutenant governor Bob Bullock, a Democrat. Bullock, who died in 1999, aided Bush on legislation and backed him for reelection as governor.
Bush will have a high-visibility surrogate in courting Daschle and other Democrats: Dick Cheney. As vice president, Cheney would have the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. More than that, Blunt says, both Bush and Cheney have told him that Cheney will be “the leader of the legislative effort.” Cheney, a House member from 1978 to 1989, will spend considerable time on Capitol Hill, meeting with senators and representatives and “getting in front of a TV camera.” Blunt says “serving as key legislative strategist is the best thing Cheney could do.”
In the end, Bush may have to choose among goals. If the clash is between preserving his base and creating nice atmospherics in Washington by caving in to Daschle and Gephardt, he’d be wise to stick with his base. He should again recall the mistake his father made: Bush Sr. neglected his base, and then when he was in political need, it wasn’t there. A good way for George W. to start satisfying conservatives would be to rescind immediately Clinton’s executive order allowing American funds to go to international groups promoting abortion. Another would be to promote tort reform, the bane of Democratic trial lawyers. The best way would be to insist on an across-the-board tax cut in the 2001 budget resolution, which can’t be filibustered. Daschle and Gephardt would fume. Better that, however, than becoming a president without a large and loyal band of followers.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
