Sinking Ship?

Will Bush’s Second Term Drag Down the GOP?

George W. Bush lost the 2000 presidential election by half a million votes and saw the result as a mandate to rewrite the tax code and redraw the map of the world. So when he won the 2004 election by 3 million votes, those who didn’t vote for him either time had to be wondering what the lay of the land would be for about the next four years. 

Bush’s second-term agenda was so unapologetically bold — he wanted to privatize Social Security, flatten federal taxes, remake the courts and, on the side, democratize the world — it bordered on the revolutionary. Back in November, as Democrats were sunk low in a delirium of defeat, it seemed that nothing could rein in the Republican president.

Six months later, however, Bush is the dog that didn’t bite, and, quite simply, Americans aren’t happy with the current course of the country. They’re unhappy with the economy and they’re tired of the war. They also don’t like Bush’s plans for the nation; if it isn't already dead, Bush’s signature domestic-policy effort — the plan to privatize Social Security — is in a persistent vegetative state: hated by Democrats, independents and even Republicans —only divine intervention can save it. 

Now the question is whether Bush’s sinking popularity — and his desire to stick with his very unpopular plan for Social Security — will hurt the Republican Party’s agenda over the next two years and beyond. Sure, the GOP still advocates ruling the world while its massive conservative arm still wants to amend the Constitution, alter the Senate’s rules on judicial nominees, and disrupt long-standing fiscal, environmental, global and social norms; but at the same time, Bush looks boxed in: there’s no money left in the federal coffers to implement his tax cuts, the military’s stretched too thin for him to invade another country, and the federal courts are holding his social agenda in check.

Even key Republicans are beginning to balk at Bush’s extremism. On questions involving the Social Security plan, or the details of the federal budget, or the confirmation of Bush’s nominees, a few moderate Republicans have begun to go against White House plans. If the American public continues to turn away from Bush, political strategists say it’s only logical to expect more defections from their Republican representatives on Capitol Hill.

Only a minority of Americans have consistently agreed with Bush’s positions on most questions of policy. The main reason the majority chose him last November was his tough stance on a single issue: terrorism. Yet hard-line conservatives saw the 2004 election as a green light for right-wing radicalism — as a sign that the public wanted Social Security privatization, a change to the tax code, and a generally conservative social agenda.

According to the Gallup Poll, Bush’s popularity peaked in early February, around the time of his State of the Union address. He was on top of the world — 57 percent of those surveyed approved of his performance and 40 percent disapproved. In his speech, Bush sought to link his apparent foreign-policy successes, such as the election in Iraq, to his domestic-policy goals. Just as the American people had supported him on the war in Iraq, so, too, did Bush want them to support his judicial nominations, his tax plan and especially his goal to privatize Social Security; but that support failed to materialize — and his approval numbers have been plummeting.

Pollsters point to many reasons for Bush’s decline, including high gas prices and the Republicans' unpopular decision to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case. But by far the main issue pushing Bush down, they say, is his ambition to privatize Social Security. 

Americans may have given Republicans the keys to Washington, but they didn't want them to run roughshod over the place….

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