Bush Shapes Reelection Plan to Avoid Dad’s Fate

Especially after George Bush the elder lost reelection in 1992 despite his Persian Gulf War triumph, conventional wisdom has held that the three most important issues in presidential elections are the economy, the economy and the economy.

That’s why many people expect that with the war in Iraq winding down and the 2004 campaign revving up, George Bush the younger will start talking about the economy, the economy and the economy.

But when Bush travels today to Ohio, he’ll defy that prediction. He plans to make two speeches -- one on the economy, the second on national security.

It’s a good bet that in the weeks and months ahead, Bush’s team won’t focus exclusively on the economy but will try to keep both topics front and center. The president and his aides are betting, in effect, that the “It’s the economy, stupid” logic of 12 years ago has been superseded by a fear of terrorism.

The Sept. 11 attacks “made national security an important part of the national debate for a long time to come,” said Robert Teeter, who served as manager for the 1992 Bush reelection campaign.

President Bush has signaled that he plans to stress both issues at the same time -- to grapple with the sluggish economy while reminding voters of his national security successes.

“I will continue to promote an international agenda of peace and freedom, and I will continue doing what I have been doing, [which] is working on our economy and working to modernize the Medicare system,” the president told reporters Sunday. “I have always been involved with the domestic policy. I ... get somewhat taken aback when I hear stories that assume I can only do one thing.”

Richard N. Bond, chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 1992 election, said there is no reason to see the economy and national security as mutually exclusive.

“I believe he’ll have no problem with a blend of both. Presidential elections are always about peace and prosperity,” Bond said.

Today’s trip to Ohio is a near-perfect example of how the president will seek to strike the balance. Bush will speak about the economy at Timken Co. in North Canton, a steel and ball-bearing company. His second stop will be the Lima Army Tank Plant, the General Dynamics factory outside Dayton that makes the M1A1 Abrams tank, where he will talk about the military and national security.

Ohio is a key state for Bush, heavy with the kind of blue-collar and suburban voters Republicans hope to win over in greater numbers during the reelection campaign. Bush narrowly won the state in 2000.

Ohio also happens to be the home state of George Voinovich, one of two moderate Republican senators who have stubbornly opposed the White House’s proposed $726-billion tax cut package, insisting that it must be cut to $350 billion. White House officials have declined to say whether the president intends to use the visit to pressure Voinovich.

Voinovich spokesman Scott Milburn said the senator welcomes the president’s visit to Ohio, where a battered manufacturing sector has made the economy a big issue.

“It’s the right place to go and the right message. The senator hopes he does it a dozen more times before the end of the year,” Milburn said. “We need an economic stimulus package to rev up the economy....[Voinovich] just believes anything more than $350 billion should be paid for.”

Voinovich was invited but will not attend the president’s speeches, Milburn said, although he will greet Bush as he arrives at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.

Democrats see the faltering economy as Bush’s biggest weakness. Within minutes of the announcement of his Ohio trip, party officials released data showing that the state had lost 168,000 jobs since Bush became president. But even they acknowledge that the old paradigm has changed, and that since 9/11, Democratic candidates won’t be able to run on the economy alone.

“People are making a mistake to compare this election cycle with the ’92 election cycle,” said Chris Lehane, a strategist for Democratic challenger John F. Kerry and the former spokesman for Al Gore’s 2000 campaign. “In this election, in order to engage Bush where he is extremely vulnerable -- which is the economy -- [Democrats are] going to have to pass the threshold question of, ‘Can you handle national security?’ It’s going to be an outstanding and ongoing issue.”

Republicans hope that Democrats will have difficulty passing that test. For one thing, the party and its presidential candidates remain split on the war against Iraq and other national security issues. Thus, keeping national security at the top of the agenda promotes division among Democratic voters.

The more Democrats squabble, the better the president looks, and the better his chances of drawing votes from the center.

“In the big picture, [Bush strategists] would like ... a big electoral sweep” that realigns political loyalties, said a Republican strategist close to the White House. “They think the instrument of that is the national security-foreign policy cluster of issues. The impediment to that, they understand, is the economy and a heightening of the domestic agenda.”

The economy and national security focus has two potential drawbacks for Bush. The first is whether, barring new developments, attention on Iraq and Afghanistan can be sustained until November 2004.

“The war on terrorism won’t be over,” said a former senior aide to the president’s father. “But public patience of a wartime footing will not last forever.”

The second potential problem is the possibility that economic improvement will come too slowly for Bush to escape his father’s fate.

As his father learned to his regret, it takes the public the better part of a year to absorb news that a recession has turned around. If the economy sputters along for the next year or so, voters will have to decide whether to give the president credit for trying.

“The question is whether the people will be satisfied by an attentive president who doesn’t turn the economy around,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “You can’t play Herbert Hoover and say prosperity is just around the corner. You have to appear to be very busy and very focused on the economy and ... hope the inexorable forces of the economy play out in your direction.”

Even if they don’t, Teeter said, Bush is still going into the 2004 campaign with one overwhelming advantage.

“Presidents have usually done better [in reelection campaigns] when the country is focused on big issues instead of small issues,” he said. “I believe 9/11 really changed the country and changed it for a long time to come. It made it more serious. It made it more unified. And one thing the country decided is they are in agreement with the president on national security. They may be divided on their opinion of him on the national economy, but they are behind him on national security issues.”

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Times staff writers Mark Z. Barabak and Janet Hook contributed to this report.