Past May Hold Key to Bush’s Future

President Bush is a stickler for routine, whether it’s his fitness regimen, his social schedule or his political message. His central themes vary little from speech to speech; even the jokes stay the same.

But as he gears up for his reelection campaign, Bush faces a potential problem: Will his tried-and-true political message do the trick this time around? Or does it need updating for the 2004 race?

Part of the dilemma for Bush is that he may have tapped out much of his domestic agenda -- tax cuts, education and the reform of Medicare -- during his first term.

Bush claims significant achievements in all those areas. He has signed two large tax cut laws. He worked with Democrats to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, which gave school districts more freedom in spending federal dollars, but required reading and math tests to gauge student progress. Congress is close to an agreement to provide prescription drug coverage under Medicare, and Bush is pushing lawmakers to seal the deal.

Political analysts say that Bush’s record -- particularly his response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- is his strongest selling point.

“I really think the election will be a referendum” on Bush’s first term, said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank. “If voters are confident in him, they are going to return him to office based on that more than on a promise of what he’ll do in the future.”

But by convention, political candidates -- even incumbents -- have to look forward. And Bush’s White House communications director, Dan Bartlett, said the president’s campaign will articulate a fresh vision.

“This will be a future-oriented campaign,” Bartlett said.

The trick will be formulating a message that reminds voters of Bush’s achievements while suggesting he still has a lot to offer. What could complicate this is Bush’s trademark adherence to a few -- usually four -- core issues.

When he was running for governor of Texas, the four were improving education, reforming welfare, reducing crime and reforming the legal system. As a candidate for president, he stressed cutting taxes, improving education, reforming the Medicare and Social Security programs and increasing the budget for defense.

“He sticks to his core themes and the reason he does is they work for him and they achieve results,” said Nick Calio, who served as Bush’s congressional liaison until this year.

On the national security front, Bush is expected to remind voters repeatedly that his administration is waging a war on terrorism -- a theme that simultaneously would emphasize his past leadership and suggest it may not be wise to change presidents in the midst of this battle.

It is in the area of domestic policy that Bush could run into trouble crafting a new message.

For instance, after two massive tax cuts and with a ballooning federal deficit, many observers believe the tax issue could be largely exhausted. That will especially be true if the anemic economy fails to respond to the president’s tax cut medicine.

“If the economy remains sluggish, with a growth rate around 1%, then the tax cuts aren’t going to be seen as any great plus,” said Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Since Bush is loath to stray far from his core issues, some Republicans familiar with his thinking believe he will try to cobble together a tax cut platform from pieces left on the cutting room floor as this year’s bill was negotiated. Those bits probably would include a continued push to make permanent most of the tax cuts -- many expire in a few years -- and expand the reduction in dividend taxes.

The president’s more difficult task could come in updating his “compassionate conservative” agenda.

Education was the centerpiece of that agenda in 2000. But the bipartisan support that propelled the No Child Left Behind bill into law has dissolved, with Democrats charging that the administration’s budget requests have shortchanged education.

“There’s no doubt the administration has burned whatever bridges they had to the Hill on education,” said one congressional staffer.

Some analysts viewed Bush’s speech last week embracing a plan to provide $75 million in vouchers that parents could use for tuition at private schools as a trial balloon for the campaign.

But unlike educational accountability -- the key element of No Child Left Behind law -- vouchers are a highly partisan issue that may not serve Bush’s political goal of appealing to centrists. To do that, GOP insiders suggested, he may have to search for a new school-related issue, such as higher education.

Liberal and conservative analysts believe Medicare reform may emerge as the main component of a retooled “compassionate conservative” agenda.

“If he gets a deal on Medicare, then adds some soothing rhetoric, he hopes that will be enough,” Ornstein said.

Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank, said that more broadly, Bush may seek to tie various issues together through the concept of “choice.”

As part of this theme, Bush would promote his efforts to offer a choice of Medicare coverage that includes managed-care plans, a choice of schools using vouchers, and a choice of whether to keep some Social Security funds in personal retirement accounts.

Bush almost assuredly will continue to talk about his “faith-based initiative” that would funnel more federal dollars to church-based social organizations, even though the idea is moribund on Capital Hill.

And he is expected to keep stressing the importance of national service, even though Democrats accuse him of trying to financially gut AmeriCorps, a federally funded volunteer program started by President Clinton.

Marshall predicted Bush will promote “a few small [proposals], just big enough to hang a rhetorical drape on.”

In the end, no matter how Bush tweaks his traditional agenda, his political fate probably will depend more on what happens at home and in the world and how he responds to those developments.

“I think he’s going to take themes and words that he’s comfortable with and repeat them and repeat them and repeat them,” Ornstein said. “But in the end, when you’re the incumbent, it comes down to performance.”