No Political Storms Ahead for Bush’s Still Pond

Look fast: George Bush is completing one of his periodic transformations from wimp to titan. After being canonized as a political Goliath for his come-from-behind thrashing of Michael S. Dukakis, Bush spent his electoral honeymoon on the couch, listening to the Washington Establishment condemn him for caution, indecisiveness and apparently terminal blandness. Now his notices are shifting again. Bush’s proposal to cut troops in Europe received a thundering response abroad; his plan for controlling air pollution was warmly welcomed at home. Bush’s job-approval and personal ratings have soared.

Perhaps most important, Bush is confounding Democratic efforts to develop a line of attack against him. Though it remains early in the Administration, the Democrats’ inability to draw a bead on Bush has implications for the 1990 midterm elections and for the 1992 presidential race. It often seems that political campaigns pivot on a few weeks of misleading TV commercials and orchestrated sound bites, but the themes that dominate national elections usually simmer for years. Right now, for the Democrats, nothing is cooking.

By this point in Jimmy Carter’s presidency, the perception of the former Georgia governor as incompetent at home and overmatched abroad--central pillars of the GOP case against him in 1980--was percolating through political circles. By this point in Ronald Reagan’s first term, Democrats were blasting him for “unfairness” in his economic priorities, belligerence toward the Soviet Union and indifference toward the environment--issues Walter F. Mondale tried against him in 1984.

In sharp contrast, the opposition brief against Bush hasn’t taken form. If Reagan’s first year was a war, Bush’s is a snore. “Nobody is making a coherent case against George Bush right now,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman.

That’s not only because the Democrats have been too busy dressing their own wounded on Capitol Hill to take aim at the White House. Bush hasn’t given the Democrats much to shoot at. He’s pushed a centrist agenda that doesn’t inspire outrage. At the same time, when pressed enough, he’s capably rejoined charges that his agenda is too modest: After Democrats accused Bush of ignoring Soviet arms-reduction initiatives, he unveiled his surprisingly bold proposal for troop cuts in Europe--and changed the issue’s political dynamic overnight.

Bush has been much less prone than Reagan to box himself into constricting ideological corners. That flexibility has allowed him to commandeer a strong middle-ground position on several issues that help Democrats, particularly arms control and the environment. He cut his losses on aid to the Nicaraguan Contras. The congressional Democrats haven’t been able to get far enough away from Bush to effectively fire on him; even in the continuing legislative fight over the minimum wage, the difference between the President and Congress is only 30 cents. Except for Bush’s uncertain handling of the Alaskan oil spill and his opposition to abortion, liberal interest groups have had nothing to rally against.

“Bush has not broken off big chunks of the population and declared them the enemy or allowed them to declare themselves the enemy,” said one White House aide. “He is not going about this in a polarizing way. The reason the lines of attack aren’t there isn’t because of some neo-Teflon quality of Bush; it’s that there is no ideological issues base from which to oppose him.”

As the new House leadership settles into place, the Democrats will do a better job of building that base. But the party faces a larger problem in drawing a line against Bush: catching the public’s attention. Before the 1988 campaign, many Democratic strategists, and even some Republicans, predicted the nation was approaching a cyclical turning point--when its focus would shift from private concerns that defined the 1980s to the public initiatives that animated the 1960s. But those hopes have been disappointed: Even in Washington, there’s little sense now that government is the driving force in American life. Next to the tumultuous events shaking the communist world, Washington’s paralyzing obsession with personality and peccadillo seems trivial--a food fight on history’s fringe. The public has recoiled accordingly.

That disinterest subtly strengthens Bush, whose public agenda is far more limited than congressional Democrats’. Democrats continue to take heart from polls that show voters want to confront such social problems as drugs and homelessness. But those attitudes remain diffuse and not necessarily aimed at government action. After absorbing eight years of Reagan’s homilies against big government, Americans don’t expect much from Washington; in one recent survey only 25% of the voters said they expected any significant help. That atrophied view of government responsibility has lowered the standard Bush must meet.

In all this, reality matters. Traditionally, Americans don’t ask much of government as long as it seems to have big issues under control--the economy, international relations. And at that tectonic level of politics, too, the underlying forces now look to be grinding in Bush’s direction.

Pre-eminent among these is Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s apparently boundless determination to reach accommodation with the West. Gorbachev’s need to divert resources from military to domestic spending are driving him to reach agreements with the United States limiting both intercontinental nuclear weapons and conventional forces in Europe. As the Cold War fades, Bush’s luster can only brighten.

Economic forces also boost Bush. Because of demographic trends, the economy over the next decade will have to provide jobs for fewer new workers than during the 1970s and early 1980s. Without a major recession, unemployment--now at a politically insignificant 5%--will stay low. Inflation, the most immediate economic concern, remains an issue where Republicans have more credibility than Democrats; besides, few experts expect prices to heat up soon.

The flip side of these positive trends, for the White House, is that they entrench the Democrats’ congressional majority. Bush’s consensus-building may make it difficult for Democrats to challenge him, but it frustrates Republicans trying to create the polarizing issues that could dislodge Democrats in 1990. Bush’s low-key style may also prevent his putting down deep roots with the public that could anchor him if events turn sour. If he has any doubts, he could check this with Dukakis.

Nothing in politics remains constant. But no storms that could disturb this political equilibrium seem to be gathering on the horizon.

Republicans are trying to make congressional ethics a major issue for the 1990 election, but there’s little evidence that people are paying attention. Recent polls continue to show the dichotomy: No matter how much the people revile Congress as a whole, they consider their own representative a model of civic virtue.

Now controlled by an activist conservative majority, the U.S. Supreme Court could send more ripples into Washington’s still pond. The court’s recent series of decisions limiting affirmative action could force Congress to revisit the issue--unsettling Democrats, who are trying to regain the votes of middle-class whites generally hostile to such programs. But Republicans, trying to attract blacks without offending their white base, won’t be much happier. Neither side is anxious for a sweeping court decision on abortion. A decision restricting or overturning the 1973 ruling to legalize abortion might make that emotional issue the dominant concern in 1990 gubernatorial and statehouse races, with unpredictable results.

Still more important is the public’s nagging long-term anxiety about America’s faltering international economic competitiveness, symbolized by the persistent trade deficit. Polls continue to show that voters fear the nation is falling behind Japan and other foreign competitors and could face an eroding standard of living over the next generation.

These doubts remain a potentially powerful political force. But they were present during the 1988 presidential race and, despite the Democrats’ best efforts, never became a cutting issue--largely because voters remained satisfied with their immediate economic circumstances. It will probably take a recession to focus those long-term anxieties enough to affect elections, Democratic strategists acknowledge. If that’s so, it means Democrats may again need an economic reversal to bring the White House into their sights.