Bush Looks to ‘Unique Moments’ in D.C. Visit

As the electoral college meets today to cast its votes for president, George W. Bush is making his first visit to the nation’s capital since it became clear he would become the nation’s 43rd president.

By the time he leaves late Tuesday, he needs to begin to establish his legitimacy, leadership and ability to get along with the city’s diverse power centers.

That mission is all the more necessary, in the view of participants in earlier government transitions and other political observers, in the wake of the extreme discord of the postelection period, when doubts were raised about the legitimacy of Bush’s election and whether he--and not Vice President-elect Dick Cheney--would really be running the government.

“The wounds are pretty raw from the process. I’m not sure everyone has recovered from that,” said Montague Kern, a Rutgers University professor who has written extensively on political communication.

In the end, the work he does these two days could go a long way toward establishing him as a Republican president with whom Democrats can work, and a leader who can summon the broad support of the public when he needs to pressure the Congress.

During his visit, he planned to meet with President Clinton and, separately, with Vice President Al Gore, whom he last saw during their testy third debate two months ago in St. Louis.

He was also expected to meet with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, congressional leaders of both parties and, more privately, to conduct a number of interviews with potential Cabinet members. Meanwhile, Laura Bush, the president-elect’s wife, is expected to meet with Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House today.

Before Bush’s arrival in Washington on Sunday evening, he acknowledged the significance of his visit during a news conference where he announced three top-level appointments in his new administration.

“It will be special,” Bush said. “It will be . . . a series of unique moments, starting with sitting down and talking with Alan Greenspan. . . . And I look forward to going to the Hill. And then I’m very much looking forward to talking with the vice president and to the president. And it’s going to be, I’m confident, a memorable trip.”

As important as those meetings may be, the most far-reaching elements of his two days here may very well be not what happens in private, but the signals he sends to a nation seemingly weary of the drawn-out electoral battle and deeply divided by the result.

“The public relations effort may be more important than any meeting he has,” said William Kristol, who was chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle. He can help that along, Kristol said, by demonstrating that “he’s behaving appropriately as a gracious victor.”

At the same time, he needs to establish his authority to help him meet long-range goals, once whatever honeymoon he gets has ended.

“It’s nice to be liked and useful to be respected, but it’s important when you’re president to be feared,” Kristol said. “That creates the ability to go over the heads of Congress and use the will of the people to beat them.”

With few opportunities beyond the give-and-take he permits at photo sessions at the start of some of the meetings, Bush will need to address such questions as these:

Can he be a force for unity, binding the wounds of the Democrats who supported Gore, but at the same time keeping in line the conservative Republicans who helped fuel his campaign? Can he lead the government while giving the Congress its due? Indeed, can he establish in the minds of Gore’s supporters--a number greater than his own, as measured by the popular vote--that he is the legitimate winner of 271 electoral votes?

Offering what is likely to be the first of many efforts to answer that final question, Andrew H. Card Jr., who will serve as Bush’s White House chief of staff, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “He played by the rules, he won by the rules.”

As for his efforts to reach out to Democrats--and whether he would in effect give them a say in his key personnel choices, say, potential nominations to the Supreme Court, should any vacancies occur--Card said of his new boss, “He will not share that responsibility in an inappropriate way with Congress.”

Today and Tuesday, Bush’s ability to engage in just that sort of difficult signal-sending will be put to the test.

“He needs to develop the momentum for bipartisanship and for reaching out. He needs to reinforce the consistency of that message, of reaching out to Republicans and Democrats alike, that there will be a new tone and new mood in Washington, “ said Kenneth M. Duberstein, President Reagan’s last White House chief of staff. “You’ll see him stay on that message for days to come.”

“That’s the key to an orderly transfer of power. Bipartisanship is integral to everything he wants to accomplish.”

And, he said, that is Bush’s style: To work with opponents to grind out compromises, rather than throwing “Hail Mary passes.”

While agreeing with the need for bipartisan cooperation, some Democratic leaders on Sunday signaled possible battles ahead. On ABC’s “This Week,” Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said of Bush’s proposal for a $1.3-trillion tax cut: “I can’t think of anything that would divide this nation more quickly, right off the bat, than to impress upon Congress the importance of passing a tax cut of that magnitude.”

Lyn Nofziger, who helped guide President Reagan in his initial Washington experience 20 years ago, said that, in addition to fostering bipartisanship, Bush cannot overlook the goals of the Republicans already in Washington who helped get him here.

“He’s got to assure his own people, the Republicans in Congress, that he is not going to walk off and leave them,” Nofziger said.

As for the meetings with Clinton and Gore, he said, Bush “doesn’t have to do anything special, except show he’s not a jerk.”

“When he leaves here, he has to have reassured the people who voted for him around the country that he knows what his job is going to be . . . [and that] he knows what he’s doing,” Nofziger said. “People have to think that this guy is in charge, that he’s going to be the president, that Dick Cheney is not.”