> President
Bush’s State of the Union
lacked boldness – unlike his previous ones
San Diego, CA. President George W. Bush’s State of the Union
address last Tuesday was more tempered and less partisan. Except
for one declaration that he wanted to work to eliminate the United
States’ petroleum economy — which at first glance seemed pretty
extreme, especially for a former oil executive himself — there
seemed little that was new in the speech, including its tone. Bush
reiterated his positions on foreign policy and did not back off a
bit. The speech was, in that sense, pretty uninteresting. And that
is what made it interesting.
Clearly, his State of the Union address was designed to rejuvenate
his troubled presidency. Bush really did not have much of a choice
but to tone down his rhetoric given his dismal approval rating in
2005. Dropping below 35-37 percent approval range in the Fall,
President Bush was on the verge of a failed presidency. Had he
dropped below that range, his core constituency would have been
deserting him — and that is something from which no president
recovers. Bush hit the level and then paused. For about a month,
his presidency teetered on the brink. Then the numbers started to
rise and grew steadily into the mid- to high-40s — which isn’t
great, but is out of the danger zone.
For Bush, the very first step was to consolidate his base of
support. He did a number of things along those lines, but the
single most important thing he did came to fruition Tuesday —
Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
The Republican core consists of three constituencies: Social,
economic and national security conservatives. Last fall, Bush was
in trouble with two of these groups. The national security
conservatives felt that he was not providing sufficient resources
to the military and was stretching it too thin. But he had to nail
down the social conservatives before he could consider anything
else.
That’s what Alito’s nomination and confirmation was designed to
do. Social conservatives believe that Alito is with them on their
key issues. Whether he is or not remains to be seen, but that Bush
satisfied this key constituency has been obvious. He stabilized
them as soon as he announced Alito’s nomination.
Normally, his next move would have been to reach out to the
middle, by indicating some give on foreign policy, surveillance —
something. By doing that in the speech, he would have grabbed more
of the center and pushed his ratings above 50 percent. But he
didn’t do that. Instead, he did something interesting. A good part
of the speech was pitched toward national security conservatives.
One line, saying that the drawdown of troops in Iraq would be left
up to military commanders and not to politicians in Washington,
was particularly designed to assuage those national security
conservatives who are afraid that Vietnam is being repeated in
Iraq. He did not address their core concern, which is that the
Army is being stretched thin, but he did everything else to warm
the hearts of these constituents.
Two possible conclusions seem to follow from this. The first is
that Bush still does not feel comfortable that his political base
is solid. You can’t reach to the center until your base belongs
firmly to you. One way to read Tuesday’s speech, then, is that it
was designed to firm up a not-yet-stable core.
The other way of looking at it is that Bush feels he can hold his
ground and still grind away into the center because of the
weakness of the Democrats. Their performance on a host of issues
shows that they simply cannot generate a coherent message that
both takes advantage of Bush’s weakness and builds their party’s
own credibility. Every time they hit at Bush, they hurt him but
hurt themselves as well. The Alito confirmation was a case in
point.
Bush may be gambling that the Democrats are incapable of mounting
an attack and that holding his ground is the most rational move he
can make. Whether he is still consolidating or has simply read the
Democrats as self-defeating is unclear. What is certain is that he
gave a speech that essentially restated his position in the stomp
speeches he has given these past few months. What that means is
not yet evident — but that it is a significant move is obvious.
President Bush also did a classic Clintonian move by offering the
nation teaser proposals on energy, health and education and warned
against the “false comfort of isolationism” that sought to
reassert his control over the nation’s agenda heading into a
pivotal midterm election campaign.
Perhaps his most striking declaration is when he said “America is
addicted to oil” and set a goal of replacing 75 percent of the
nation’s Mideast oil imports by 2025 with ethanol and other energy
sources.
But even that goal was less ambitious than it might have appeared.
Hybrids are already around and ethanol is already being used to
fuel cars. Besides, the United States gets less than 20 percent of
its oil from the Persian Gulf. The true State of the Union then
when it comes to the oil industry is that they just made over $60
billion profit last year and making more while consumers are being
hit with high prices at the gas pumps. The Katrina victims were
disappointed and so did most Americans who had to listen to Bush
talk about how global trade is good for America when many of them
were losing jobs and struggling to get health insurance.
The speech was indeed a disappointment to many and was notable
largely for a lack of big new proposals from a president who for
five years has not shied from provocative and politically risky
initiatives.
