George Bush, charge his opponents, is jejeune, swaggering, extreme, and embarrassingly inarticulate. If they stick to that songsheet, the president has nothing much to worry about: after all, the Democrats would say that. But he does have a weakness: forget about whether he's sufficiently presidential; he's not a good Republican. On key issues such as trade and federal spending, which I'll list below, Bush has jettisoned the good-government principles that have traditionally underpinned the Republican Party. And that ought to offer the Democrats an opening, if they were sufficiently ruthless to exploit it.
Until recently, any discussion of Democratic electoral strategy was academic. Bush has enjoyed the approval ratings that attach to wartime presidents; he has raised more campaign funds than any other presidential candidate ever at this stage in the proceedings; Republicans have a lock on the South, and are making inroads into the industrial states of the Midwest.
But rising unemployment and US casualties in the occupation of Iraq have made Democrats think, for the first time since September 11th, that George Bush might after all be beatable. His overall approval ratings are falling: they dropped below 60% for the first the since September 11th. On the question of economic management usually a strong indicator of electoral prospects, Americans are on balance dissatisfied.
The softness of the president's poll numbers has emboldened the Democrats. Bush, so recently the sacrosanct wartime president, is now again the object of mockery on cable broadcasts such as Jon Stewart's Daily Show. Howard Dean's candidacy has excited the activists, he raised more than $7m in campaign funding, mainly over the internet, in the second quarter. The best measure of the changing political weather: Democratic Party operatives are even floating the idea that Al Gore, the former vice-president who lost to Bush in 2000, might return for a rematch.
So how lucky for the president that his opponents are so busy providing therapy for Democratic activists. Howard Dean, though a gun-toting fiscal conservative, has emerged from the also-running only by outright opposition to the war in Iraq. Other candidates, such as John Kerry, are following him to the Left.
All this is standard practice in American presidential elections: win the primaries on the flank, and come back to the center for the main contest. But it leaves one feeling like a kibitzer at a chess game: the lethal move is so obvious, but your guy just can't see it. The Democratic candidate for president should appropriate the traditional Republican values of limited government, individual liberty, and fiscal responsibility.
Because these Republican positions are up for grabs. George Bush, no doubt egged on by his political advisers, has out-pandered the Democrats in providing prescription drug benefits to pensioners, agricultural subsidies to farmers and protection to steelworkers. In so doing, however, he has given the Democrats arguments to present to the moderate suburban voters who are the largest voting bloc in American elections.
Federal spending. The Republicans, traditionally the party of small government, have allowed federal spending to rise at the fastest clip in twenty years. In 2000, President Clinton's last year in office, total outlays accounted for 18.4% of GDP. By 2002, the budget consumed 19.5% the GDP. Less than half of that growth can be explained by the growth of defence outlays since September 11th. The recession? Well, both Bush Senior, and Ronald Reagan, in his first term, contended with economic contraction, but without letting federal spending rip. According to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, Reagan was able to reduce non-defense discretionary spending by 14% in his first term; Bush, who has not vetoed a single spending bill, will have overseen a rise of 18%. The Bush Republicans have become the party of big government.
Trade. In introducing steel tariffs, maintaining trade barriers against textile imports even from strategically important countries such as Pakistan, and boosting farm subsidies, Bush has undermined the traditional Republican commitment to free trade. The administration justifies its actions as a tactical move, designed to increase its room for manoeuver in broader trade negotiations. More like a tactical move designed by the president's political advisers to win the farmbelt and rustbelt states. As an abstract principle, free trade is rarely an election winner, but a tough opponent could present the policy as a new tax on food, clothing and cars, to fund the Bush re-election campaign.
Corporate governance. One wouldn't think that the Republicans were once the party of Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busters. The Bush administration is notoriously cosy with business: fewer than a dozen executives have received jail sentences, despite corporate wrongdoing on an epic scale in the late 1990s; the administration has abandoned efforts to curtail the power of Microsoft; and it's appointees have just given the green light to monopolistic consolidation in local television and newspaper media.
National security. Bush has largely abandoned the Atlantic Alliance, the cornerstone of Repubican foreign policy for the second half of the 20th century. I am not suggesting that foreign policy is a popularity contest; Americans are in the mood for realpolitik. However, a Democratic candidate, wearing the mantle of Bush Senior's Atlanticist foreign policy, could at least make one powerful point. An American commitment to set the world to rights, without the support of allies, is prohibitively expensive. Republicans are supposed to avoid open-ended international commitments.
Individual liberty. The federal bureaucracy, under George Bush, has seized on September 11th to expand surveillance of American citizens, tie together information databases, and generally increase the power of the state over individuals. The Republicans have, since Ronald Reagan at least, been the political home for libertarian voters. It is no longer.
I am convinced that a candidate running against Bush on this platform could win the coasts, a large slice of the American West, and maybe even some of the New South. There's only one problem: he would not survive the Democratic primary.
