Bush experiencing unfortunate pattern of second-term presidents

04/29/2005

BY MICHAEL TACKETT
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - President Bush on Thursday used a format he does not like to discuss issues he cannot resolve in hopes that he can sell the American people on policies most say they don’t want.

In other words, he has fallen into the unfortunate pattern for second-term presidents who face a broad constellation of things gone wrong and few ways to fix them quickly.

One of the great ironies of the presidency is that the strongest and most popular earn second terms only to see their public support wane and their political strength diminish.

It was into that cauldron that the president waded for a rare prime-time news conference that covered everything from personal religious faith to global nuclear war. Presidents typically only ask for network oxygen when they want to make a statement, unfiltered, or they want to change the subject.

Bush tried a little of both.

On his signature proposal to bring fundamental change to Social Security, the president offered something that had been lacking, namely detail. He proposed changing the level of benefits that retirees receive based on their incomes.

It is a notion that is complicated and controversial but perhaps entails just enough concrete information to at least get the support of Congressional Republicans.

He also tried to emphasize a different name for new private accounts - “voluntary personal retirement accounts” - that he said are central to his Social Security plan, even though they draw the most unified opposition from Democrats.

Winning the battle over language and labeling might be crucial to which side wins the final vote.

But even among some fellow Republicans, there is a sense that the president hasn’t effectively connected with the American people on the issue.

“The problem is that the country doesn’t think Social Security is in a crisis,” said Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill. “I don’t think the president’s message of `Social Security in a crisis’ resonates.”

The president has been conducting a 60-day national road show, with dozens of appearances around the country to promote his plan. Almost all of those forums, however, are attended only by strong supporters of the president.

The failure to connect effectively with younger voters on the issue, especially when Bush contends that he wants to change the system to protect them, is a strong measure of his challenge, LaHood said.

“Unfortunately, the audience the president really has to try to engage and energize hasn’t been engaged or energized,” he said.

If the president has a tough sell on his Social Security plan, his challenge in addressing rising anger over gasoline prices is even greater. He conceded as much, saying there was no “quick fix” other than jawboning major oil producers into increasing supply.

He had little to offer other than sympathy to consumers in the near term and a pledge to pass more a complete energy plan in the long term.

LaHood named said high gasoline prices as the No. 1 issue he hears about in his home district.

“I don’t know if they really see a connection between the president cozying up to the Saudi Arabians (and the prospect of lower gas prices),” LaHood said of the photo opportunity this week that showed the president holding hands with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. “I don’t know if that picture was that helpful.”

Bush pledged that he would be, imploring Congress to get an energy bill to his desk by the summer.

Presidents often use Congress as a foil to complain about inaction. It is a more difficult case to make when the president’s party controls both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

On the issues over which he holds little sway - the fierceness of the insurgency in Iraq, the spike in terrorism, rising crude oil prices among them - the president faces even greater challenges and in some ways offered answers that his critics will find less than satisfying.

His message was stronger about matters that he should be able to command, notably his unyielding support for the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations.

Bush also offered a modest surprise when he appeared to break from many in his party over the issue of faith in politics, particularly as it relates to the appointment of federal judges. The president said he believed that those who opposed his nominees did so because they didn’t like the judge’s philosophy, not because they were engaged in an overall assault on “people of faith” as some Republicans have argued.

“You should be allowed to worship any way you want, and if you choose not to worship, you’re equally as patriotic as someone who does worship,” Bush said.

The president, it seems in both time and distance, is at great remove from his boast shortly after his re-election that he had earned capital and that he intended to spend it.

Some have questioned how he chose to do it, by inserting himself into the Terri Schiavo controversy, by sticking to his stay-the-course view on the war in Iraq. But even those critics can say he is not consistent.

And the Democrats so far have clearly provided an argument but not an alternative.