For Bush, a fight to the finish

by Mark Silva

President Bush wants to talk about the Democrats, and all their spending.

He'll be doing it on the radio today, and he'll be doing it as he travels next week to familiar and friendly terrirtory, Lancaster, Pa., to complain about the fiscal irresponsibility of Democrats who want to tax and spend Americans out of prosperity.

It's part of a way to define himself against the Democratic Congress as the election year nears, a way to rally his base behind vetoes and veto threats. Critics say Bush is a W "come-lately'' to the discipline of fiscal control -- former Fed chief Alan Greenspan says the lack of vetoes until now helped get the Republicans in the hole they're in today.

And, as Bush vetoes a children's health care bill offering an expansion of coverage for lower- and middle-income families, the president runs the risk of alienating voters who may like some of the benefits that he is determined to veto. For more, see the story in today's Tribune:

For Bush, a fight to the finish

Veto pledge on kids' health bill
part of bid to rally base for next election,
analysts say

By Mark Silva
Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - President Bush has picked a surprising place to make a stand.

He has vowed to veto a bill passed by the Senate that provides children with health care, a measure with wide bipartisan support and clear public appeal.

The president contends the measure is part of a wrong-headed march toward "nationalized medicine," far too costly and too expansive. His veto threat is part of a new tactic to try to paint his political opponents as reckless spenders, a posture that could win Bush admirers among fiscal conservatives. It allows him to draw a sharper contrast between himself and Democrats.

A version of this movie has played before. After Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994, President Bill Clinton began speaking out against the controlling party, a strategy that led to a resurgence in Clinton's popularity.

But Bush's approach in some cases also carries peril, because the president is tackling causes that could work against his popularity and that of his party as it fights to retain control of the White House.

Bush has vowed to veto spending bills, accusing the Democrats of fiscal recklessness, which could lead to a major showdown this fall. He faced down Democrats over attempts to de-escalate the Iraq war, suggesting they are embracing defeat. And he has rejected the expansion of the children's health insurance approved by the House and Senate this week.

With Bush's own standing near his all-term low in opinion polls, experts say there may be little that he can accomplish to improve his image for the rest of his term.Yet the contrast that Bush draws with Democrats on taxes, spending and the war could rally the GOP base for the 2008 elections.

Doug Schoen, a Democratic pollster who served Clinton, sees sense in Bush's strategy.

"Given where his numbers stand, it can't hurt. It could help," Schoen said.

The danger for Bush is that he could be on the wrong side of public opinion on many of these issues. Voters mostly oppose the war, and his stance on health insurance for children is politically perilous. Even on spending, Bush leaves himself open to charges of inconsistency because he refused to veto spending items during the six years the GOP controlled Congress.

"He is looking for places to draw lines in the dust," said Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. But "I think the [children's health care] issue is a mistake politically."

Clinton, Schoen said, was advancing an agenda of his own, while Bush has largely been forced to play defense.

Still, Ornstein suggested, Bush has few options but to seek a foil in the Democrats.

"This is a choice made out of weakness," Ornstein said. "Your basic choice is to fall back on energizing your base. ... You've got to try and go back to basics, which is to be tough on fiscal responsibility and the size of government, and take on the Democrats."

There is still one positive element of the domestic agenda Bush is pressing this fall: Re-enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act that was passed in 2001. Yet this, too, is cause for conflict with Democrats and some Republicans who once supported the measure, but now complain it has burdened teachers with teaching for tests demanded by the government.

Bush's standing with the public has modestly rebounded in recent weeks, with public approval rising to 36 percent in the latest Gallup Poll, Sept. 14-16. That was up from 31 percent in mid-July, which matched the all-time Gallup low that Bush reached in May 2006.

Yet, with the failure of immigration reform and the shelving of Social Security and tax reforms, Bush is left with little of his own initiatives to present Congress, save an increasing bill for war.

This has placed Bush on defense, a position that he is attempting to play to its fullest as his party prepares for 2008.

In an e-mail fundraising appeal to Republicans signed by Bush this week, he said that "Republicans cut taxes for everybody who pays taxes" while warning that the Democrats "want to return to the days of tax and spend."

The president, in his conflict with Congress, may find plenty of chances to reclaim the mantle of fiscal control.

"I believe the worst thing that can happen now is to allow the Congress to do that which they have said they want to do, which is to raise the taxes on people," Bush said at his last press conference. "I think I got a B in Econ 101. I got an A, however, in keeping taxes low."