Dr. David Hill - "The Hill" Newspaper
Bush is redefining "moderate"
Facing a reelection campaign that his own aides predict will be closely contested, George W. Bush is redefining the politics of being a "moderate," and thereby positioning himself for a huge victory in which swing voters will vote for him in overwhelming numbers.
With apologies to Stephen Covey, I would like to outline a few habits of the highly effective moderate that Bush is becoming.
First, the highly effective moderate practices what former California Gov. Jerry Brown's observers once labeled "canoe politics:" Paddle a little on the right, paddle a little on the left, and keep going down the middle. That is by no means the fence straddling that typifies the ineffective moderate. Bush puts his paddle fully into the water and gets some power strokes. His triumphant rollout of the national do-not-call registry last week illustrated his skill. Although many of his liberal critics see the president as too pro-business, he had no problem taking consumers' side last Friday.
"Unwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, they are annoying, and they're all too common," the president said. "When Americans are sitting down to dinner, or a parent is reading to his or her child, the last thing they need is a call from a stranger with a sales pitch." Ralph Nader couldn't have said it better.
Bush was also being an effective moderate when he embraced his pro-business conservative core?s controversial tax-cut agenda. By fighting for a conservative goal, taking a position that surprised no one on either side of the issue, Bush rewarded and pleased his base without alienating any liberal Democrats.
But his most effective agenda-setting tactics are evident in his careful choice of crossover issues. He seems to select center-left issues that are more important to grassroots voters than to organized liberal interest groups.
Based on closely observing his actions as governor of Texas, I am confident that this fervent admirer of Republican Teddy Roosevelt could easily have chosen to embrace environmental or conservation issues to appeal to center-left voters. Or he could have waded into racial-justice and affirmative-action territory. In Texas, as with his college admissions initiative, he showed an affinity for agenda building in those realms.
Yet Bush opted for prescription drugs as his paddle to the left. There are few organized seniors groups to excoriate him for hypocrisy, as there would have been in the environmental or African American communities, had he steered in either of those directions.
Bush?s canoe politics are also more effective than Brown?s because the president is remaining steadfastly loyal to his longtime, core beliefs. Brown seemed like a chameleon, constantly reinventing himself for votes. Similarly, Bill Clinton?s ?triangulation? strategy seemed more like political opportunism than principled leadership strategy. Bush?s effective moderation leaves no room for regarding him as ungrounded and lacking in core values or bedrock beliefs.
Not since former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) was in his prime has Washington had a more resolute and decisive politician. Bush never gives off any vibrations that he is vacillating.
He never seems to have much trouble making up his mind. That is reassuring to voters who want the quality of balance in their leaders yet at the same time don?t want someone who seems as if he might go wobbly.
Although Bush sometimes seems open to what Washington might describe as compromise, you never get the sense that he?s really changed his mind.
George Bush is also a highly effective moderate because he?s so comfortable being the ?man in the middle? who stirs anger among hard-core ideologues of both the left and right.
Ineffective moderates, conversely, place a high value on avoiding conflicts and healing divides.
Bush and other highly effective moderates embrace conflict and even name-calling by political combatants as an opportunity to demonstrate the calm, reassuring leadership that voters want today.
Dr. David Hill is director of Hill Research Consultants, a Texas-based firm that has polled for Re-publican candidates and causes since 1988.
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