It doesn’t fit into the spin message, so some will say it isn’t backlash — but it sure looks and smells like backlash:
President Bush and his hard-charging political team, which seemed to make all the right moves in winning re-election last year, have stumbled when it comes to governing in a second term, many Republicans say, leaving the White House scrambling to get back on track.
Even as they expressed continued support for Mr. Bush and his goals, influential Republicans said Karl Rove and the White House political operation have been slow to shift from campaign mode, with its base-energizing positions, to an approach that allows for more compromise and increases the probability of Mr. Bush signing legislation that directly addresses the everyday concerns of voters.
Hey, have they been reading this site? More from the New York Times piece:
“The tone has been too much of a permanent campaign,” said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker. “When you’re the minority, you need to fight. When you’re the governing majority, you need to produce.”
When Newt Gingrich not-so-politely says you’re spending too much time acting as if the campaign is still on, you know that at the very least you have a major perception problem (but some would say NG is right on track). AND:
In discussing the White House’s problems, Republicans cited a variety of assumptions and decisions that have not worked out as Mr. Bush and his team had planned. They said the administration may have overestimated how much of a mandate Mr. Bush had coming out of last year’s campaign, underestimated the willingness of the Democrats to stand up to him and relied too much on a belief that he could force Congress into action by taking his case directly to the people.
They said a degree of difficulty was to be expected, given the scope of Mr. Bush’s second-term ambitions. At the same time, they said, Mr. Bush and his team are struggling with a problem they never had during the campaign: with no high-profile political opponent as a foil, and with Democrats refusing to put forward competing proposals on issues like Social Security, the president and his policies stand on their own, with nothing to deflect partisan fire.
Should Mr. Bush have a Supreme Court vacancy to fill – a possibility that could present itself as early as Monday – it could further inflame partisan passions and complicate the prospects for the rest of his agenda, including his push for major new energy and trade legislation this summer, members of each party said.
“They thought because they had slain the Kerry dragon they could claim a mandate and do what they wanted to,” said one prominent Republican in Washington, who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly about what some see as the administration’s miscalculations. “Now they have to sell things, whether it’s Iraq or stem cells or John Bolton – let alone Social Security – on their own merits.”
The White House dismissed suggestions that Mr. Bush and his team had lost their touch and were struggling. Nicolle Devenish, the White House communications director, said Mr. Bush and his aides had done “an amazing amount of outreach” to Capitol Hill; were sharpening his message on Iraq and the economy; and were making steady progress on Social Security, energy and trade legislation, and other issues.
“An amazing amount of outreach…” Perhaps they could be more specific…?
–Does that include Vice President Dick Cheney incorrectly suggesting that Republican Senator Chuck Hagel didn’t want to go to Afghanistan and blasting Hagel on TV (this has NOTHING to do with Hagel’s recent criticism of the war, mind you).
–Does that include Karl Rove’s outreach to liberals and Democrats — paying them that consensus-inducing compliment by saying they wanted to call in Dr. Phil to take care of the terrorists after 911 and that they’re delighted when American kids in uniform die in the field?
What’ll happen today after this piece comes out is that there may be another spate of damage control in an attempt to get a cohesive White House/GOP/Talk Show hosts unified message.
But there is indeed an emerging, if reluctant split in the GOP.
You can see it from this story, you can see it from weblogs — and nowhere is it more apparent than in THIS CLIP that shows Fox News anchor Britt Hume defending Rove’s comments — using the LATER explanation that KR was only referring to MoveOn.org. It’s pretty clear that in terms of objectivity and having a personal ideology, Hume is the conservative Dan Rather. He is quickly challenged by a clearly concerned Bill Kristol who calls Rove’s comments inaccurate and, basically out of line. The segment does not end with the two in agreement. (Watch it for yourself).
The Times piece above underlines this split between the GOP’s pragmatists (We NEED centrists, Democrats and, yes, liberal support to enact programs or to have them accepted more readily by building as much bipartisan consensus as possible) and perpetual partisan campaigners (We need to defend Rove because he’s beating down the Democrats, we don’t need them to enact our legislation and is on our team and deserves our support).
The danger for the White House and Rove: hubris.
The White House may very soon have one — or two — Supreme Court seats to fill. Just think how much easier — even a tad — it would have been Rove hadn’t made those remarks and if this administration had been in more of a government mode — the mode of a government that works for and tries to include all Americans. Campaign mode keeps the base on its toes but it also solidifies, unifies and motivates the GOP’s opponents — decreasing the chances with each controversy for any kind of consensus.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.