THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 18, January 26, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE BUSH/ROVE POLITICAL STRATEGY: TRIANGULATION OR CAPITULATION?
By Christopher G. Adamo
Last week's surprising results from the Iowa caucuses may portend an upcoming
campaign season that is far more challenging for President Bush than
previously anticipated. This is not to suggest that John Kerry’s upset win
is, in any way, a guarantee of dominance in subsequent Democratic primaries or victory
in the presidential election returns on November 2, 2004. But it does clearly indicate that Democrats at the grassroots
can energetically oppose George Bush without necessarily embracing their
party’s extreme left wing.
For the past three years, the Bush administration, largely at the direction
of political strategist Karl Rove, has sought to move the political agenda
towards the middle, which, from the vantage point of the Conservative
grassroots that elected Bush, means away from their core values and
principles. Bush and Rove presumed, somewhat arrogantly, that they were
systematically taking Liberal issues “off the table” for Democrats by
essentially adopting them, when in fact they were taking those issues off
the table for Conservatives who chiefly voted for Bush with the expectation
that he would protect them from such things. Yet (as is always the case
whenever this inane strategy is employed), no appreciable gains have been
made among the opposition.
According to research data compiled by the National Taxpayers’ Union
Foundation, all eight Democratic candidates would significantly increase
government spending (and thus, tax rates) were any of them to be elected.
Such information should make the deficit issue a “slam dunk” for the
President. Unfortunately, dire predictions of excessive spending by the U.S. government under the control of Democrats
ring somewhat hollow in light of Bush’s own behavior. His less-than-sterling
record on fiscal discipline, having implemented the biggest entitlement
expansion in four decades with his prescription drug plan alone, thoroughly
undermines any ominous warnings of Democrat raids on the treasury. In this
manner, Liberal candidates like Kerry can find refuge under the umbrella of
Republican “moderation,” though they could never have hoped to do so were
they running against a true Conservative.
The campaign finance “reform” law, which President Bush refused to veto in early
2002, returned to haunt him at a most inopportune time, when the U.S. Supreme
Court decided last month to uphold many of its blatantly unconstitutional
provisions. Likely presuming that the law would be overturned in the courts,
and not wanting to be on record as supporting the status quo in politics,
Bush signed the measure instead of castigating its sponsors for their
transparent attack on free speech.
In a recent gesture of apparent atonement, President Bush has finally taken
the offensive in the matter of the federal courts. By installing Alabama Attorney
General Charles Pickering on the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the
President effectively bypassed the unconstitutional filibuster of federal judges
being waged by Senate Democrats.
Pickering alone will have virtually no effect on the rampant
judicial activism being committed by Liberal judges on this nation’s high
courts. It remains to be seen whether Bush’s move is part of a determined
plan to restore the integrity of the Constitution, in which case he will
have to follow up with other recess appointments. According to James Taranto
’s January 19 Wall Street Journal editorial, the appointment is instead
merely a political move, intended to motivate Evangelical voters who
abandoned Bush in large numbers during the 2000 presidential race.
In his January 20 State of the Union address, President Bush indicated an
intention to take the offensive in regards to judicial activism, while
toning down his earlier advocacy of an open borders policy with Mexico, a policy that
greatly angered the Conservative base of the Republican Party and the Bush II Presidency. A mid-course correction of this
nature will do much to restore his disillusioned base, but the effort will
have to be concerted, yielding tangible benefits, if it is to net any
positive political gains. By framing judicial activism as it should be, and
thereby making its erosion of the U.S. Constitution central to his 2004 campaign,
President Bush could reap great political gains from the unparalleled
stonewalling antics of Senate Democrats.
Otherwise, if as the Iowa caucuses seem to suggest, John Kerry takes the
lead in the Democratic primaries, and if he is able to convince the American
people that his war record (lest we ever forget) sufficiently qualifies him
to deal with national security, that issue may no longer be Bush’s “ace in
the hole.”
More on American Politics & Political Competition
More on Liberalism Versus Conservatism
in American Politics
More on American Government & the U.S. Presidency
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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