Is Bush's Political Capital Spent?

Great Debates
1

Less than one year later, has the President used his capital wisely? Social Security reform failed to gain the support he hoped for, most siginificatly among Republicans who will be seeking reelection next year. Support for the war in Iraq is waning, and his nomination of Harriet Miers was torpedoed by religious conservatives because she did not pass their litmus test on abortion. Even lesser decisions by the President, like waiving Davis Bacon wages for hurricane recovery workers, had to be rescinded because his own party opposed it and threatened to overturn it in Congress.

Did Bush squander the political capital from the election, or was it an illusion all along?

2

No, Bush’s political capital was never an illusion. After 9/11 his approval ratings were among the highest ever seen for a president. He had broad domestic and international support for increased security measures and hunting down those responsible for 9/11. At this point I think its fair to say that he has lost nearly all of the international support and the domestic side isn’t much better. The cause of this in my opinion is that he simply did bungle the signature move of his administration. The message when we went into Iraq was that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators, the occupation would be short and the Iraqis would establish a government with minimal American causalties. In reality here we are more than a year into our occupation, 2000 Americans dead and an extremely fragile Iraqi government. For the most part Bush has successfully done damage control on this and has cloaked the true nature of his administration.

Katrina, Plame and the Meirs nomination have done a great deal to remove that cloak. From Katrina we saw first hand that Bush values appointing his supporters than national safety. The Federal response to Katrina in the eyes of the nation was anemic and horribly inept. When the Plame saga started Bush came out and said that he would fire whomever was responsible. Period. When it was revealed that the leak came from the highest parts of the organization he changed his tune and bullshitted his way around his initial promise. At least some Americans have picked up on this and aren’t happy. The Meirs nomination is an unmitigated disaster in both timing and in nature. Bush was being hammered for nominating a crony with questionable credentials to FEMA and what does he do? Nominates a crony with questionable credentials to the Supreme Court.

The cloak of the administation is beginning to crack and the American people are not happy with what they see. A year too late if you ask me but late is better than never.

3

I think it’s too early to tell, myself.

Proof of this, I think, is Bill Clinton, who appears to have some political capital in his account. He used this to a good degree in the last campaign, and will presumably exert some influence on his party in the future.

This wasn’t immediately obvious in 1998, when his presidency was at low ebb.

4

Political capital is the same thing as approval ratings. They were marginal at the election and are in the pooper now.

The President’s ability to spend political capital is the same as his ability to get things through Congress, which is the same as Congressmembers’ own political calculations about their next elections. If the preponderance of them think going along with the President’s wishes on some issue will hurt more than help, then the President doesn’t have any spendable political capital on that issue.

5

I think Terri Schiavo also really hurt. After the election, there was so much news coverage of the strength of the religious right. Then, one of Bush’s first move was to get personally involved in a family struggle as payback for the votes from the evangelical churchs. Most Americans are suspicious of the religious right and I think this move was a political disaster for Bush.

Also, Bush made a serious error with the Cindy Shaheen mess. He should have realized than in August, things like this can generate a lot of media attention. Remember Gary Condit from August, 2001?

Bush struggled in 2001 until Sept. 11. There is always the chance he could regain his political strength. But, with potential indictments of Rove and ethics problems with Cheney, he could be in for a very rough road ahead. This could energize the Democrats, drawing stronger candidates and more money for the 2006 elections.

I couldn’t be happier!

6

Well, his presidency was at a “low ebb” in the sense that there was lots of controversial stuff going on, but it still had a lot more support in public opinion.

In February 1998:

In October 1998:

So it’s not really surprising that Clinton could have some “political capital” left over from that level of popular support, and it’s not really comparable to the President’s current situation.

7

Bush is still going to be president for a long time. He’s got the majority of his second term left.

Peggy Noonan’s latest column touches on this subject. She’s a bit overly sentimental about it, but she’s got a good point overall.

What Bush needs at this point is to stop. Look around. Re-assess some of his decisions. Get some humility and make some changes.

I liked that Bush tried to do something about Social Security. When I voted for him in 2004 that was one of the most important hopes that I had for his second term. He gave it his best shot, but he lost. This gobbled up a lot of his political capital.

The war in Iraq is a huge drain on him politically. People are unhappy about it and this more than anything else is hurting the president. Over the next year or so I predict we’ll see the troop levels drop and hopefully casualties with it.

The nomination of Harriet Miers was a collossal blunder by Bush. I disagree with the OP’s summary that the nomination was stopped by the right wing because of abortion. She was too unknown in general. She wasn’t qualified for the job. She was a crony who never would have been considered had she not been Bush’s personal lawyer. It was arrogant and stupid of Bush to nominate her and I’m glad they’ve backed down from this.

When you’re in trouble, as Bush is now, you don’t betray your base. That’s when you need them more than ever. Who does Bush think that last 40% of folks who approve of him are? It’s that base that was so offended by Meirs. The SCOTUS appointments are the one thing that they figured they could count on Bush to get right. The next pick should be a Janice Rogers Brown or another qualified conservative with a track record. Somebody the conservative base will like.

Speaking of conservatives, Bush should start acting like one. He needs to start getting spending under control if he wants to leave a positive legacy. The spending during the past few years has been a disgrace. Congress has more blame for the than the president, IMO, but he needs to step in. He proposes slim budgets, but it’s obviously not a priority to keep them slim because they end up fatter than a Christmas ham. He should have vetoed the highway bill.

The other day Bush started talking tough about the border. This was a good sign, but he needs to follow up. We need to either increase the border control by a huge amount, or put the military on the border. There’s overwhelming public support for this that transcends politics. Even people who don’t care about political parties and policy can see the insanity on the border. How can we be safe from terrorists if we can’t even control our own borders? Bush needs to act fast here.

If Bush lowers casualities in Iraq, gets a conservative judge on the court, controls spending, and brings sanity to the border he can turn this around. If he continues on his current course it’s only going to get worse.

8

Also, this hasn’t been a good year for Republicans in general. Bob Taft, Tom Delay, and Bill Frist have had ethics problems. Arnold has been struggling with low approval ratings and controversial ballot measures in California. Ted Stevens and Don Young defending bridges to nowhere. Rick Perry failing to accomplish school finance reform in Texas while wasting time on sexy cheerleaders.

Hubris, it is wonderful political payback.

9

I was pretty shocked when he made that “I have political capital” statement after the last election. The first rule of political capital is that you don’t talk about political capital.

Frankly, though, I didn’t think he had that much to begin with. He squeaked by in the last election. It was more a case of Kerry losing than of him winning. He made a brilliant move with the Roberts selection, but most of what he’s done in the last year has fizzled. He needs to get his ass back down to reality before he’s going to recoup any of his lost political capital.

10

Gone. He’s handled his political capital with the same deftness with which he handles the federal budget. Never has so much been squandered by one man so quickly. He has taken the nation from having the world’s sympathies in September 2001 to being the outlaw torturing evil empire in the eyes of the world. His debacle in Iraq, the positively disastrous response to Katrina, his hideous Meiers nomination, and the impending indictment/resignation of key members of his staff are all taking their toll. He is now the lamest of ducks. Better that he remain that way than regain his strength and do even more damage to mankind.

11

I would disagree on Sheehan. It could have hurt her until she went off the deep end. Now she only makes herself look bad.

12

I think Sheehan hurt Bush back in August. Today, she does no damage as I believe she is a one woman publicity machine.

The problem for Bush was that Katrina pushed Sheehan off the front page.

13

Yep. Sheehan, like many fringe wackos (both kinds), just makes her side look bad. I’m sure the administration is happy to see her getting press. She makes all the normal, legitimate complaints about Iraq lose credibility because of how nuts she is.

14

She doesn’t help the anti-war side, but I disagree that she makes legitimate criticism of the war lose credibility. More and more mainstream politicians and talking heads are getting on the bandwagon that we need to start getting out of Iraq now. Not a complete withdrawl, per Sheehan’s suggestion, but Americans want to see progress in bringing the troops home, not some vague commitment that we’ll do so sometime in the future. I’ll be very surprised if we don’t see Republican Congresscritters advocating troop draw downs as part of their campaigns next year.

15

He seems to be grasping at straws with the border issue. Sort of a “Quick - give me something , anything that I can’t fuck up too bad.”

He’s got the taint of being out of control now and I don’t foresee him regaining it anytime soon. Politics is all about “What have you done for me lately?” and he’s done nothing but screw up left, right, and center.

16

Agreed, John Mace. Cindy does hurt her cause, but not enough to make a difference. I didn’t mean to suggest she has that kind of pull. She’s a minor embarrassment to the left. No biggie.

I do agree that more and more politicians will start siding with public opinion and wanting to reduce troop levels.

Yep. But, I don’t care about his motives. He can fix the border because it’s the right thing to do. He can fix the border because it’s a political move to save his own skin. I don’t care. Just fix the damn border! :wink:

17

“Back”??

Sorry. :smiley:

18

Bush did not have any political capital after the 2004 election.

He talked about “politcal capital” as if he had a bank account full of it, and needed to withdraw certain amounts to pass social security reform and accomplish various other objectives. Ridiculous. Political capital is not a number-measurable thing. It is the concept of having the ability to pass legislation, of having widespread support, of having political momentum. You don’t have political capital just because you say you have it.

Briefly, Bush was not terribly popular in November of 2004. There was no wide groundswell of support for Bush or for his policies in this country. He certainly got no international support. He did not have any basis for believing that he’d be able to pass Soc Sec reform. He eked out a very narrow win in the election by running a campaign that was 100% percent negativity. He slandered his opponent in the most vicious imaginable ways. Winning an election in that manner doesn’t give you political capital, because it doesn’t prove that anybody actually thinks your platform is a good idea. It only proves that you were able to make a slight majoirty hate the other guy slightly more than they hate you.

Since then he’s made the matter worse (or perhaps I should say better). He bungled the Schiavo case, and the war, and the Katrina recovery, and federal spending. And most of all, he bungled the reaction to Cindy Sheehan. Read some columns on the war from six months ago versus columns being published recently; there’s a huge difference. Six months back a few people might vaguely complain that some aspects of the war weren’t handled well, but no one was willing to say that the entire war was a fiasco and that we should consider withdrawing. Cindy Sheehan changed all that single-handedly. She made it possible for politicians, pundits and even generals to step forward and seriously suggest that pulling out is the best option. Hawks had no counter to Sheehan’s arguments so they merely sat around saying: “She’s nuts. That for sure. She’s a publicity whore, no doubt about it. She’s only hurting her side. Yup.” Meanwhile, public support for the war continues to drop.

19

Let me get this straight: You’re suggesting that if Cindy Sheehan hadn’t been doing her protesting during the past few months then there wouldn’t be anyone suggesting withdrawing from Iraq?

You give her way too much credit. Politicians are becoming more critical of the war because they are following the lead of the people. Public opinion has shifted. Cindy Sheehan has nothing to do with it. If anything she’s hurt her cause, not helped it. She’s certainly not responsible for it.

20

Based on polls, I’m not sure that that’s true. Certainly Sheehan raised awareness about anti-war sentiment, especially as a Gold Star mom. And as of last month she still had a favorable opinion rating of nearly one-third of the public:

Yeah, a lot of people don’t like her, but I wouldn’t conclude that her net impact has been to damage the antiwar cause. I agree with you, though, that she certainly didn’t launch the withdrawal movement single-handed.