Bush Focus on Compassion Poses Challenge in Party

Many congressional Republicans are heading into next year’s election campaigns with high hopes that their presidential front-runner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, will redefine their party image with his emphasis on “compassionate conservatism” and bipartisanship.

At the same time, however, many of these same Republicans are pursuing a legislative agenda--headlined by measures slashing domestic spending and declaring war on popular culture--that reflects a harder-edged brand of conservatism. And their most prominent leader, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), is one of the most polarizing figures in the Capitol.

As Bush arrived in Washington for meetings with congressional Republicans on Tuesday, Democrats were already trying to exploit that contrast by attempting to define Bush as a soul mate of his congressional kin--or as powerless to lead them on the more centrist course he might like to chart.

“You can’t have it both ways,” said Democratic Party Chairman Roy Romer. “You can’t go out on the campaign trail and say we’re not going to leave anyone behind and then come to Congress and sit down with your buddies and support a budget that leaves hundreds of thousands of children behind.”

Some Republicans concede that the public may be getting mixed signals from their congressional party and their leading presidential candidate.

“There are competing messages and competing images before the public about what the Republican Party is and what it stands for,” said Ed Gillespie, an advisor to presidential hopeful Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio.). “They have got to converge . . . in 2000.”

Washington GOP Turns Out in Force

But Bush advisors see no contradiction. On his initial campaign swing through Iowa and New Hampshire last week, he unreservedly praised bipartisanship, although he has displayed no sign of distancing himself from Congress.

Indeed, Bush again praised compromise at a fund-raiser here Tuesday night that drew the Washington GOP establishment and pocketed another $2 million for the campaign.

“I’ve learned that you cannot lead by dividing people into groups,” Bush told the GOP activists assembled before him. “In my state I’ve worked with Republicans and Democrats to build concensus to find common ground. . . . We often had major disagreements. Yet we were united in a single purpose--what was best for Texas.”

Earlier, a senior Bush advisor said in an interview: “‘We are running with Congress and proud of it. Roy Romer and others would like to run against Tom DeLay and not against George Bush. That’s not going to happen.”

Bush has a powerful reason to embrace congressional Republicans: He is counting on them to help deliver him the nomination. As part of the extraordinary outpouring of early support from the party establishment, 126 House Republicans and 23 Senate Republicans have already endorsed his candidacy--far more than have aligned with any other contender.

Not all congressional Republicans are yet on the Bush bandwagon. In fact, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah said Tuesday he was planning to mount a long-shot bid for the nomination.

Bush appeals to congressional Republicans because he looks like a winner who has the best potential of any GOP candidate to help them hold their fragile House majority in 2000.

What’s more, many Republican officeholders are eager for him to redefine the party. As moderate Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) put it: “I like the term ‘compassionate conservative.’ There are a number of Republican candidates who have not shown a real compassion on human issues. . . . We need to think about our hearts and not just financial number crunching, as sometimes get played as Republican philosophy.”

The paradox is that the image of the party that some Republicans in Congress hope to erase with Bush is the image they themselves have engraved over the last five years.

Even Bush advisors believe he is prospering in the party because he is seen as the antithesis of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), with an agenda that sands down some of the rough edges of “revolutionary” Republican conservatism that alienated voters after 1994.

The Challenge Is to Walk a Fine Line

“The compassionate conservative theme,” said the senior Bush advisor, “is a way for Republicans to feel good about themselves after being demonized along with Newt as hard-hearted. It’s a big message.”

The challenge for Bush is to walk a fine line between his message of inclusion and the more partisan preachings of some of his congressional supporters. In Richmond, Va., on Tuesday, he embraced some of the conservative agenda by reaffirming his commitment to a law against abortion and endorsing the posting of the 10 Commandments in public school classrooms. But in Texas, Bush has demonstrated a willingness to compromise with Democrats to advance his agenda on ending social promotion and cutting taxes. And since the Texas legislative session concluded at the end of May, he’s repeatedly said Washington should take a lesson from Texas and become more bipartisan.

At a press conference last week in New Hampshire, for instance, Bush said: “I resolved in my mind that an administration can change the tone of Washington--that good, honorable, decent people can come together and change the tone from zero-sum politics.”

House Republicans, by contrast, have been pushing many measures designed to sharpen the differences between the parties rather than bridge them. They are pursuing a budget strategy that would provide big increases for defense at the expense of education and other social programs.

During last week’s debate on juvenile crime legislation, DeLay (who has endorsed Bush) took a high-profile role in Republicans’ attack on what they said were the cultural roots of youth violence--such as the absence of religion in public life. “God, not guns,” was DeLay’s rallying cry.

Bush’s senior advisor said the candidate would at least “tacitly acknowledge” that both sides had to bear some of the blame for the partisanship that has riven Washington, but would try to shift the focus to whether he could lead the capital away from its perpetual conflict.

“His style is not to lay blame for the situation but to offer a positive way to move out of it,” the aide said.

The challenge for Democrats is whether they can make Bush’s embrace of bipartisanship appear empty by contrasting it with the intense partisanship of Republicans on Capitol Hill.

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Times staff writers Marc Lacey and Steve Fuzesi contributed to this story.