Pat Buchanan, himself a three-time presidential candidate, has
an insightful article
in the latest issue of Atlantic Monthly magazine on the
question of whether or not President George W. Bush can be defeated
in 2004. Buchanan, it would seem, would not shed many tears if Bush
did go down, as he regards this president as Center/Left, having
co-opted most of the ideas pushed by the Democrats.
He does concede that defeating Bush will not be easy. If the
economy is still in the tank, the president will be vulnerable. Any
president would be in that situation. The good news for Bush is
that economic indicators are up. However, manufacturing and even
white-collar jobs are being exported overseas in droves. Bush thus
far has not addressed the problem, nor is he likely to address it.
Bush is, at heart, a free trader. As such, he doesn’t worry about
jobs being exported because free traders believe the benefits to
the American consumer outweigh the disruption to communities when
factories shut down.
Up until recently, that may have worked. That’s because many
factory workers, with re-training, were able to get equally high
paying jobs in the high tech sector. Now that those jobs are being
exported too, it is another matter. Where do those Americans go to
find decent work? The tax cuts are supposed to help create new jobs
and indeed there is an indication that they are beginning to do so.
Unemployment and under-employment are likely to be problems for
this president, if the new jobs created don’t make up for the jobs
being exported.
Things could unravel in Afghanistan or Iraq. It is hard to tell
what is really going on over there. The news media, for the most
part, are acutely biased against the administration, so they
highlight every negative story they can find. Some stories may be
manufactured. After all, they have done it in other places. Friends
of mine who have returned from spending some weeks in Iraq tell me
more progress is being made than is being reported.
Afghanistan is another story. Kabul is fairly stable, but if one
travels outside the capital, unfriendly forces of all sorts are
still in charge. If a serviceman or two or three is killed each day
in Iraq and Afghanistan, between now and Election Day, more than a
year away, it is hard to calculate how it will translate
politically.
There is always the possibility that fourth generation warfare
would cause things to completely unravel in Iraq. We already know
that some of the daily killing of our servicemen in Iraq is due to
Moslem extremists who get into Iraq from Syria and Iran. No doubt
we could handle that problem temporarily if we had another 100,000
troops in Iraq. That is not going to happen. Given the fact that
our troops are not prepared for fourth generation warfare, it is
possible that such an unraveling would take place. More likely is
the possibility that our military will have things reasonably under
control through the elections. I would be surprised if Iraq becomes
an issue with traction.
The heart of Buchanan’s piece is that Bush thus far has
prevented a challenge from the Right. Bush’s father ignored his
core constituency and broke his only real promise to the American
people during the 1988 campaign. No new taxes.
Buchanan doesn’t quite understand it, but Bush is liked, indeed
even in some quarters loved, by the Right. He is loved because for
every concession to Sen. Ted Kennedy, there is a new round of tax
cuts. For every prescription drug proposal, there is the decision
to exempt the USA from the Kyoto treaty. For what many on the right
consider a mistake, that is intervention in Iraq and elsewhere,
there is the commitment to a robust missile defense system.
Then there are the social issues. Bush has been quite faithful
on the social issues. In truth, he has deviated less from
conservative orthodoxy on the social issues than he has from
orthodox economic conservatism, or from orthodox conservative
foreign policy. The reason is one that most political pundits find
hard to accept. There is a simple explanation for Bush’s general
adherence to social conservative orthodoxy. He is a religious man.
He puts his religious views into practice. He is being faithful to
his own conscience when he sides with social conservatives. He is
not doing so because Karl Rove showed him a poll. In fact, the
quickest way to earn disfavor with this president is to suggest
that he take an action because the polls are favorable.
Most pundits find this explanation hard to accept because they
believe any move on the part of any political figure has to be some
sort of cynical ploy to get votes. They themselves are cynical.
That’s how they think, so they attribute that kind of cynicism to
everyone else. Only God knows what is in a person’s heart, but I
would be shocked to learn that Bush is anything but a believer
whose faith compels him to be on the right side of social
issues.
Buchanan is himself a strong believer, so he should understand
that. He bolted from the Republican Party for the Reform Party in
2000. Since then, he has been removed from Republican politics and
he doesn’t comprehend the strong feelings for Bush among social
conservatives. Four million evangelical voters stayed away from the
2000 elections, largely because of last-minute reports about Bush’s
drunk driving charge and what they perceived as a cover-up by the
candidate. By the 2002 mid-term elections, those problems and
perceptions were put to rest, and half of those voters came back.
They helped Bush give Republicans their first mid-term election
victory in 100 years. Unless Bush does something terribly out of
character, there is not going to be a challenge to the president
from the Right.
Buchanan contends that had Ralph Nader not been a candidate in
2000, Al Gore would almost certainly be president today. He also
suggests that if the Democrats could prevent a serious third party
candidacy, their chances of defeating Bush would improve,
especially if this turns out to be a close election.
Even though the Left has improved its chances of nominating a
left-of-center Democratic candidate, it appears as if Nader wants
to run again. He has good name ID and has conducted himself well
since the 2000 elections. He is working now to get into the debates
of the presidential candidates. Should he manage to do so, he might
well damage the Democratic candidate. Although his campaign is
against both parties, his message resonates more with the Left than
the Right.
Buchanan makes one point with which I completely agree. Lee
Atwater was largely responsible for the 25-point turn around that
the Republicans achieved following the Democratic convention and up
to the election in 1988. Bush 41 went from being 17 points behind
to being 8 points ahead. By 1992, Lee Atwater had died. There was
no strategist like him to take his place. As a result, Bush ran a
campaign almost designed to give Ross Perot 19% and Bill Clinton a
sweep of the Electoral College.
This Bush has Karl Rove. Rove is one of the smartest, most able
political strategists ever to have graced Republican circles. He is
not about to let President Bush 43 make the strategic mistakes that
President Bush 41 made in 1992.
Buchanan and I come to the same conclusion. Can Bush be
defeated? Yes, it could happen. Is it likely? No. Certainly not
with the “Never Mind Nine” who are currently running.
The 2004 election year should be interesting. It could even be
dramatic. In the end it looks like Four More Years for the
incumbent president.
