Back to the Future

For four muggy days in Philadelphia, George W. Bush brought the Republican Party together in a bond of unity not seen since the Reagan years, nor imagined possible in the snows of New Hampshire just seven months ago.

The 54-year-old Texas governor proposed a sharing of effort between a limited government and private interests “to put conservative values and conservative ideas into the thick of the fight for justice and opportunity.” This is what compassionate conservatism means, he said, “and on this ground we will govern.” In his assertion that the “alternative to bureaucracy is not indifference,” Bush sounded like President Clinton, whether he wanted to or not; his reference to tearing down walls was Reaganesque.

Bush launched a preemptive strike by lashing the Clinton-Gore administration for failing to fulfill the opportunities of American prosperity: “They had their chance. They have not led. We will.”

What he failed to mention was that Republicans have controlled Congress for the past six years and often blocked the initiatives of Clinton, measures that in many instances are similar to those Bush proposes.

Bush’s major challenge was to provide voters with a coherent vision of what he seeks in four or eight years and to make a case for changing administrations. The picture he painted was a scattershot affair. There were familiar generalities on many issues: fixing Social Security, making the military stronger and offering low-income people tax credits to buy health insurance. Several themes were reliable GOP favorites, including tax cuts for all, along with longtime Democratic favorites like improving education.

At a few points he was quite specific, calling for a 5% cut in the tax rate of lower-income Americans (although unspecified reductions for wealthy taxpayers). Bush unexpectedly met the abortion issue head-on, promising, if elected, to sign into law a partial-birth abortion bill if one is sent to him by Congress. At times Bush evoked images of past heroes, Democrats as well as Republicans. A film used to introduce him flashed an image of Martin Luther King Jr. and carried the recorded voice of John F. Kennedy’s in his inaugural speech: “Ask not. . . . “ On occasion, he rambled through excessive repetition. Bush is most effective in personal contact, not a set speech.

In all, though, Bush achieved his objective for this stage in his campaign: He told Clinton opponents what they most wanted to hear, that he would uphold the honor and dignity of the office, and he stayed safely moderate for the many independent voters turned off by the doctrinaire GOP rhetoric of past years. Even his comment about abortion was limited to partial-birth abortion, which is not supported to the same degree as general abortion rights by either Republicans or Democrats.

Nothing generates party unity like being on the outside of the White House gates looking in for eight long years. Delegates and activists set aside their internal ideological differences out of the overriding desire to win. And in Bush, they think they have a winner.

Given the recycled nature of some key themes--good ones but recycled nonetheless--Bush in the future would do best to drop one line in the speech, the one about not running in borrowed clothes.