Washington — Around the White House, the President’s political
advisers will tell you that George W. Bush really was serious when
he campaigned in 2000 on the pledge to “change the tone in
Washington.” What is more they will tell you that the idea was the
candidate’s, not a political adviser’s. Finally, they will tell you
that the gentlemanly tone is something he believes in. Moreover, it
may be working. President Bush’s less invidious style may explain
why right now the Republicans are in striking distance of reversing
the usual midterm results, a loss for the President’s party in
Congress.
Only three times in the last century did an incumbent president
pick up Congressional seats in his first midterm election. Today it
is possible that the Republicans will maintain control of the House
of Representatives and eke out a one-seat majority in the Senate.
One reason for this historic reversal is Americans’ concern for
their security owing to the war on terror and to the general
perception that Saddam Hussein is dangerous. That concern for
personal security was probably exacerbated by the three-week terror
created by the Washington snipers. But there is also a positive
reason that Americans may give the Republicans majorities in both
houses of Congress. That is the President’s “new tone in
Washington.”
In his numerous campaign stops for Republican House and Senate
candidates, the President invariably accentuates positive messages
in each candidate’s campaign and never speaks ill of the Democratic
opponent. It is a significant difference from past presidential
midterm campaigning. Reporter Bill Sammon, the author of a very
good insider’s peak into the Bush White House, Fighting Back:
The War on Terrorism — From Inside the Bush White House,
interviewed an anonymous White House operative who cited the benign
consequence of his boss’s gentlemanly approach to midterm
campaigning. “What’s also unique is that the opposition this year
is not running against George W. Bush,” the Bush aide told Sammon.
“In fact, to the contrary, you’ve got Democrats all over the
country who are using the President’s likeness in their
advertising, trying to say, ‘I’m a Bush person, too, even in cases
where they’re not.”
Well, that is a bit of a stretch, it seems to me, but maybe not.
The President does have an approval rating of nearly 70% — twenty
to thirty percentage points higher than Presidents Reagan or
Clinton in their first midterm elections. Still, the general point
stands, to wit: the President’s gentlemanly tone is an attractive
alternative to the acrimony of yesteryear’s Washington pols.
For a taste of the old rebarbative tone, consider Senator
Hillary Clinton. At a fund-raiser for the wilting candidacy of
Missouri’s Senator Jean Carnahan, Clinton hissed that the President
was raising money “to try to ruin the reputations of our
candidates, or if they can’t, to depress the turnout.” Not only is
this precisely the opposite of what the suave forty-third president
is doing on the campaign trail, it goes against his stated style of
being positive and ingratiating. Newsweek reports that
Senator Clinton went on to say of the Bush Republicans that “These
people are ruthless and they are relentless.” Well, around the
White House the mission is to be ruthlessly and
relentlessly amiable. It seems to work.
Senator Clinton is also given to claiming that the President was
“selected,” not elected. Here is more of the old-style Washington
tone of venom and distortion. Candidate Bush won every official
recount in the disputed Florida race and all but one media
reconstruction of the race. To keep insisting that Bush did not
fairly win his presidency is simply dirty politics. It might also
be lying, more lying from a political operator caught lying
repeatedly by Federal prosecutors.
Interestingly, the Clintons after the forty-second president’s
impeachment made much of their intention to end what they called
“the politics of personal destruction.” In the above quotes from
New York’s junior senator you can see how very difficult it is for
them to end this odious tactic. That is because they practiced the
politics of personal destruction. It was about the only politics
they knew. Now, would it not be ironic if George W. Bush actually
succeeds in overcoming the politics of personal destruction with
good manners and a positive message? Just call him the herald of a
New Politics, “the politics of personal ingratiation.”
