Strategies Shift as Bush Polls Dip

The struggle to define President Bush’s image--and shape the climate for the 2002 congressional elections--is intensifying as both the White House and Senate Democrats recalibrate their strategies in the wake of Bush’s slumping poll numbers.

Senate Democrats, fresh from their success at passing the patients’ bill of rights, next plan to push legislation on the minimum wage, prescription drugs and other issues they hope will force Bush to choose between angering his conservative base and alienating moderate voters who polls show have already cooled on his administration.

The White House, meanwhile, has quietly launched an internal process to identify a “next wave” of policy initiatives that could help Bush regain momentum. The administration also is relying on House Republicans to block or dilute Democrat-backed legislation, such as the patients’ bill, that could be politically dangerous for Bush to veto.

Through the fall, the critical question may be which of these efforts prove more effective at shaping Bush’s public image. Politically, administration officials say, an overriding goal of the White House review process is to restore Bush’s image as a “compassionate conservative”; the Democratic agenda is meant to ingrain a competing image of him as beholden to powerful corporate interests.

Key to this competition may be what Bush does if GOP House leaders fail to block or significantly alter legislation on campaign finance reform and patients’ rights. Already, Republican sources say, the White House is dividing between those who believe Bush must stand firm for conservative principles and, if necessary, veto these measures and those who think he could reshape the political playing field by signing such legislation, even if the bills retain their Democratic tilt.

One senior Bush political advisor said the Democratic Senate takeover could “turn out to be a good thing for the president because it forces him to compromise. . . . You could see a situation where we could sign a patients’ bill of rights, a campaign finance reform bill and a prescription drug bill by the fall. That would be a big plus.”

But such a strategy would require Bush to make greater concessions than he has been willing to accept on most issues. And Bush may not believe he needs to live with major compromises.

Although the White House staff is concerned about the effect of potential vetoes on Bush’s approval ratings, “I don’t think Bush is,” says one GOP lobbyist close to the administration. “He continues to send a signal that, ‘I’m going to do what I want to do, and if nobody likes it, I’m going to go back to Crawford.’ ”

These swirling calculations underscore how dramatically the Democratic takeover of the Senate has complicated the White House’s efforts to broaden Bush’s support. When Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, the White House could keep the public focus solely on the issues it wanted to highlight. Now, even as aides work to sharpen Bush’s agenda for the fall, it must also develop a defensive strategy for responding to Democratic ideas.

That need has grown more urgent as Bush’s public support--particularly among centrist voters--has drooped in recent weeks. Though he continues to enjoy overwhelming approval from Republicans, recent polls show him suffering unusually high disapproval ratings among Democrats and attracting only tepid backing from independents and moderates.

His overall approval rating has sagged from the 55% to 60% range earlier this year to around 50% in several recent surveys. Among past presidents over the last 50 years, only Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter saw their approval ratings fall this early in their term, according to Gallup polls. The sharpest declines have come among moderates and independents; Bush has been hurt with both groups by the perception that he is more conservative than he appeared during the campaign and favors special interests on issues such as the energy debate.

Analysts in both parties agree Bush has plenty of time to reverse the trend--as Clinton’s recovery and reelection suggest. But many Republicans acknowledge he has to expand his base.

The internal White House review, first reported in the Washington Post, is focused largely on that challenge. One White House official involved in the process said Bush’s initial priorities flowed directly out of his campaign promises--such as the tax cut he’s already signed into law and the education reform bill awaiting a House-Senate conference. “Now,” said the official, “we have to determine what the next phases are.”

That effort has produced lengthy internal meetings and consultations with a wide range of other Republicans, from lobbyists to pollsters. Bush has already made clear some second-wave priorities, led by reform of Social Security, Medicare and the Pentagon. Beyond that, the White House process appears to be searching for new initiatives--in areas such as education and the poor--that could help Bush reinforce his credentials as a centrist “compassionate conservative.”

“There is a desire here to appeal to the middle and to do so in ways that are principled and consistent in our approach,” said the White House official.

Bush also will try to reaffirm the guiding principles of “compassionate conservatism” with speeches about his values during the August congressional recess. And he will focus on courting swing voters with more specific proposals after Labor Day, aides say.

The complicating factor he faces is that Senate Democrats simultaneously are developing an agenda designed, in political terms, to separate Bush from centrist voters. For Bush, the risk is that his ultimate response to these Democratic initiatives, such as the patients’ bill of rights, could influence public perceptions of him much more than the proposals the White House is formulating.

In most of the major legislative fights now pending, Democrats are trying to paint Bush as defending powerful special interests against the broader public interest. That’s the connecting theme in Democratic arguments over campaign finance reform and the patients’ bill of rights legislation, which have already passed the Senate.

And in upcoming debates on raising the minimum wage and creating a universal prescription drug benefit under Medicare, Democrats are poised to portray Bush’s opposition as a matter of protecting big employers and the pharmaceutical industry.

Bush’s best hope of dodging these bullets lies with the House. The administration is hoping House GOP leaders can muster majorities for more conservative alternatives to the initiatives pushed by Senate Democrats. That, the theory goes, would allow the House to either bury the ideas in conference committees or force compromises with the Senate to produce bills that Bush could sign without violating his principles or alienating his conservative base. Either way, he would be spared the danger of issuing a highly polarizing veto on legislation with broad support in the polls.

House GOP aides, though, caution that the leadership may not always be able to deliver the votes to implement that strategy. The pending House votes on campaign finance reform and patients’ rights appear too close to call. House GOP vote-counters see little prospect of blocking a minimum wage increase or passing Bush’s plan to allow states to opt out of such a hike. (They remain optimistic, though, about tying such an increase to tax cuts for small businesses that would make the bill more palatable to Bush.) And the playing field on prescription drugs hasn’t become clear in either the House or the Senate.

The toughest choices for Bush will come if all or most of these bills are sent to him substantially unchanged by the House Republican leaders. Although some GOP strategists fear that Bush vetoes could dangerously deepen the polarization already evident in the polls, other close observers say it’s not clear the president shares those concerns, especially on the patients’ rights legislation.

“Bush is going to veto a patients’ bill of rights that isn’t right, period,” insists the GOP lobbyist in close touch with the White House. “I don’t think that is so much a creative strategy as it is just Bush thinking, ‘You guys on the staff can do all you want, but that’s just the way life is.’ ”