Worldandnation: Bush's new strategy is a familiar one

Bush's new strategy is a familiar one

George W. Bush, like Clinton in '92, heads to the center, away from extremes in both parties.

By SARA FRITZ Times Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON -- Tom DeLay, a short, compact fellow with a Texas-size attitude, could barely contain himself. He was outraged when he learned his home-state governor and GOP presidential front-runner, George W. Bush, had attacked certain unnamed Republicans for falsely portraying America as a decadent society "slouching toward Gomorrah."

Even though Bush said Friday night that he wasn't talking about Congress, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that one Republican to whom Bush referred was, in fact, DeLay, the majority whip.

DeLay, who often seems to wield more power than his boss, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., has been responsible for putting a heavy moral spin on many unsuccessful Republican congressional initiatives, including the effort to evict President Clinton from the White House. DeLay had characterized the vote on Clinton's impeachment as a clear choice between moral relativism and absolute truth.

"This should not be interpreted as a conflict or infighting," DeLay told reporters seeking his response to Bush's statement. "From time to time, the positions of the Republican front-runner may differ from the positions taken by the House Republicans."

In fact, when it comes to policy matters, there is no substantial conflict between these two powerful Texas Republicans. They share nearly identical conservative views on a wide range of important policy issues, from gun control to national defense.

But when it comes to personal and political style, Bush and DeLay are light-years apart.

Bush is an easy-going, wealthy, Yale-educated son of a former president whose admitted "youthful indiscretions," whatever they may have been, have given him a mysterious, even rakish aura. DeLay is a dour, intensely religious former exterminator whose college diploma comes from the University of Houston.

Party strategists say Bush was trying mightily to underscore the stylistic differences between himself and the religious right wing of the Republican Party.

Polls show DeLay's style of Republican politics, with its unswerving disdain for government social programs combined with its uncompromising claim to the high moral ground, does not sit well with most voters, not even with many Republicans.

"The American people believe in right and wrong, but they say, "Don't tell me what that is,' " explains GOP pollster Frank Luntz.

"Triangulation" is the 50-cent word that political professionals use to describe Bush's new strategy. It means the Texas governor has chosen to run for president by setting himself apart from both his Democratic opponents and the unpopular elements within his own party.

This is the same strategy Clinton used successfully in 1992, when he tried to put considerable distance between himself and the liberals in his own party while challenging Bush's father for the presidency.

Clearly, DeLay and other House Republicans were stunned by Bush's criticism, which came on the heels of an equally strident comment by the Texas governor attacking a GOP plan to save $8.7-million next year by revamping the system for giving a tax credit to the working poor.

"Too often, on social issues," Bush told a New York audience on Tuesday, "my party has painted an image of America slouching toward Gomorrah. . . . Too often, my party has focused on the national economy to the exclusion of all else. . . . Too often, my party has confused the need for limited government with a disdain for government itself."

Hastert took umbrage at the suggestion. "I'm not sure we've been on the road to Gomorrah," he said.

According to the Bible, Gomorrah and its neighboring city, Sodom, were destroyed by fire because of their people's sinfulness.

Bush's criticism not only caught House Republicans by surprise, but it also undermined them at the very moment they were trying to shadow-box with Clinton on fiscal 2000 spending issues and trying without success to battle a Democratic-inspired plan to give Americans a right to sue their health maintenance organizations. Some GOP members grumbled that Bush was trying to elect himself to the White House while risking the election of a Democratic-controlled Congress in 2000.

Still, the reactions of Hastert and other GOP congressional leaders to Bush's remarks were mild compared with the responses of conservative Republicans outside Congress. Many of them saw the remarks as an indirect attack on one of their heroes, Robert Bork. The unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee's book, Slouching Toward Gomorrah, asserted that American culture is being destroyed by godless executives in Hollywood.

Gary Bauer, an opponent of Bush for the GOP nomination, described it as a "gratuitous slap" at Bork and a message to conservatives that "we don't need you."

Likewise, conservative guru Paul Weyrich called it a "strategic error" and an admission by Bush that he is a moderate Republican in the image of the late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, not a true conservative.

"Gov. Bush is choosing to distance himself from Americans who believe big government is trying to force its politically correct values on our schools and on our children," Weyrich said.

Not all conservatives took Bush to task.

Former Education Secretary William Bennett, whose books lamenting the moral decay of America are every bit as popular among religious conservatives as Bork's, said Bush may have been right in suggesting America's morals may be improving. As evidence, he cited declines in welfare, new AIDS cases and abortions.

And after their initial gasp of disbelief, House Republicans also decided to take Bush's remarks in stride, seeing them primarily as a tactical ploy.

Florida Rep. Tillie Fowler, whose job as vice chairman of the House Republican conference makes her a member of the GOP leadership along with DeLay, offered an explanation typical of most of her colleagues.

"We're running the Congress and he's running a presidential campaign," she said. "He's doing a really good job of running the campaign, and we're doing a good job of running the Congress."

And by week's end, although the reaction of conservative Republicans did not cause Bush to take back his remarks, his campaign workers tried to smooth over the hurt feelings.

In Austin, Texas, Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said her boss had only been trying to explain why he calls himself a "compassionate conservative." She added: "What he was doing was explaining the difference between conservatives with a smile and conservatives with a frown."