For Bush, Cheney, It’s Off to the Political Battlefields

With Sept. 11 in their rearview mirror, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are driving with ever-greater determination into the political year.

They are stepping up their fund-raising, making speeches in states that have closely watched elections and otherwise are engaging in the overt political activities they had shunned for months. As part of that effort, Cheney is embarking on a four-day California visit starting Monday, his first major trip since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The vice president plans to give a speech at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, speak at the Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, appear on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” tour a high-technology company in San Jose and raise money for the reelection campaigns of U.S. Reps. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) and John T. Doolittle (R-Rocklin).

The trip shows how Cheney is shedding--at least for this campaign season--the behind-the-scenes role he played not just since Sept. 11 but throughout much of the Bush administration. Unlikely to change, though, is his low-key political manner. He is expected to deliver a message that avoids the type of red-meat attacks vice presidents often are called upon to provide while presidents remain above the fray.

“Dick Cheney is known for many things, but partisan flamboyance is not one of them,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.

Bush, for his part, is quietly going about raising money for Republican candidates on his travels beyond Washington, often doing so after public events that focus on his policy agenda.

Indeed, en route to Tokyo on Saturday, Bush stopped briefly in Anchorage, where in addition to meeting with U.S. troops, he found time to speak at a fund-raiser for the Alaska Republican Party. The political event raised about $400,000, officials said.

As in his other recent fund-raising remarks, Bush avoided heavily partisan language and, instead, talked mostly about the war on terrorism while praising the state’s many elected officials, including Sens. Ted Stevens and Frank H. Murkowski, both Republicans.

After slightly more than a year in office, Bush has raised nearly $52 million for GOP candidates and party campaign accounts. In recent weeks, he has spoken at three fund-raisers that generated about $3.5 million for three Republican governors seeking second terms: His brother, Jeb Bush of Florida; George Pataki of New York; and Scott McCallum of Wisconsin.

The president also recently recorded television and radio advertisements targeted at Democratic senators considered vulnerable to defeat in November--and therein lies a wrinkle in the fabric of bipartisanship with which Bush has tried to cloak much of his presidency.

Among those the ads take aim at are Max Baucus of Montana, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Jean Carnahan of Missouri. Each voted for Bush’s $1.35-trillion tax cut, a central piece of his economic policy agenda, and each supported the administration on 71% of key votes last year, according to Congressional Quarterly, but Bush has chosen to use them as poster senators for the Democratic leadership’s opposition to the economic stimulus legislation he has been unable to get through Congress.

In the new ads, an announcer says: “When times are tough, Americans are united. We put aside our differences and do what’s best for the nation. It’s why President Bush and moderate Democrats reached a compromise plan to get America back to work.”

Bush then says: “A lot of people have lost their jobs and don’t have health care. But sadly, partisan Democrats like [here he inserts the name of the senator] voted against the compromise. There’s something more important than politics--and that’s to do our jobs.”

Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.), who has made a point of working with Bush, took umbrage at the ads.

“Look, I’m from Louisiana. I know politics,” but, he added, “if anything can kill an effort to work together, it’s politics as usual.”

Jennifer Palmieri, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, was more blunt. The ads, she said, prove that “George Bush is a mortal; he does politics just like everyone else. Is Bush going to be the commander in chief who unified everyone or is he going to be head of his party? I was surprised to see he chose the party role so quickly.”

In the view of Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist with expertise in Congress, the shift has been more gradual. “The move back to politics has been almost imperceptible,” he said. “It’s a credit to the pacing and timing of the White House.”

It is about time Bush and Cheney tended to pure politics, argued Rich N. Bond, a former Republican National Committee chairman.

“The fact that the president’s agenda suffers because of a [Democratic majority in the Senate] proves a compelling case for resuming political leadership,” Bond said.

“You’re not going to see some huge percentage of their time taken up in fund-raising. But in the absence of almost any political activity for four or five months, there’s pent-up demand. We need Bush’s and Cheney’s voice out there.”