The Bush campaign swears it has no plans to run against the Republican Congress, but not everyone is convinced. "Is this triangulation or is this strangulation?" asks John Feehery, a spokesman for Speaker Denny Hastert. Feehery posed this question the day after the first real conflict between House Republicans and George W. Bush.

The way House Republican leaders see it, things had been going pretty well until Bush opened his mouth. The news was full of Democratic angst about Al Gore, who suddenly wasn't looking like a cinch for the presidential nomination and was retreating to the hills of Tennessee. The congressmen thought they were beginning to get through to the public with the message that they were trying to keep President Clinton from raiding Social Security funds. They had just launched an ad campaign on the theme.

The Social Security gambit was a fallback for the Republicans. They knew they didn't have the votes to stay within the spending caps both parties had agreed to two years ago. But they wanted, at least, to avoid touching Social Security. If Clinton wanted still more spending, the onus for raiding Social Security (or raising taxes) would be on him. To keep Social Security unmolested, however, required some sleight-of-hand. This included a GOP proposal to have the Earned Income Credit, a welfare program for low-income workers run by the IRS, hand out checks monthly instead of in a lump sum at the beginning of the year. That way, some of the spending would count as part of the budget for 2001.

Republican consultant Ed Gillespie explains the calculation: "My mother doesn't care if we do some advance appropriating. She cares if we dip into Social Security." Democrats attacked the EIC maneuver as stealing from the poor, because it delayed payments. But the Republican strategy appeared to be working. In a press conference on September 30, Clinton complained about the ads and pleaded for a bipartisan agreement either to raise taxes or to dip into the Social Security trust fund. So far, so good.

But GOP leaders on the Hill were about to get a lesson in how the interests of a party's presidential and congressional wings can diverge. Gov. Bush joined the attack. "I don't think they ought to balance their budget on the backs of the poor," he said. Driving the knife in deeper, he added that he thought Congress should obey the spending caps. (Where to find the money? The AP reporter, no doubt being mordant, continued: "[Bush] did not elaborate.") That afternoon, as a House committee prepared to vote on the EIC proposal, Democrat David Obey flung Bush's remark in the faces of surprised Republicans.

Then the press pounced. All year, the media had been looking for a Bush slap at Congress. Partly this was because reporters think Bush will win the presidency and want him to be to the left of the mean and nasty House Republicans. Also, the press needed to further its storyline of suave, popular, pragmatic governors battling the oafish ideologues of the House for the soul of the Republican party. Bush had before refused to take the bait. He had supported House Republicans in their votes on taxes and guns, albeit tepidly, and had been attacked by Clinton and Gore for doing so.

But the storyline at last fell into place. There was David Bonior, saying that this just proved the Republican Congress was out of touch, not only with the public but with Republicans outside Washington; there was Bill Clinton, saying he was "delighted to see" that Bush "finally had joined our position on this." John McCain inevitably followed Bush's lead. So the weekend talk shows now had something besides the Bradley-Gore race to chew over. One can imagine majority whip Tom DeLay's frustration. "It's obvious the governor's got a lot to learn about Congress," the Texas congressman snapped.

Even without Bush's intervention, the EIC proposal would probably have died. Senate Republicans were nervous about it, even the flinty Phil Gramm (though he didn't go public with his concerns). But dismay at Bush's comment was not confined to supporters of the EIC idea. The policy issue would be forgotten in three weeks, said a senior staffer for the Senate Republicans-but not the "fratricide."

The Bush camp describes the remark as a quick-draw response to a reporter's question. Congressional Republicans, by and large, believe it was a deliberate attempt by the candidate to distance himself from them. There have been conflicting stories about whether Bush was briefed on the EIC proposal in advance, but it had certainly been in the papers: He had plenty of time to tell the House leaders he would have to attack them if they persisted. The soundbite quality of Bush's remark also raised suspicions, as did the neatness with which it fit with Bush's campaign strategy. His "compassionate conservatism" requires the identification of uncompassionate conservatives to serve as foils. Bush had ducked the chance to repudiate Pat Buchanan, for fear of alienating Buchanan's supporters, but the Republican Congress is a safer target.

In fact, Bush could, if he wished, go much farther in attacking it. What's the worst Republican congressmen can do to him? When Bob Dole abandoned them on the issue of assault weapons in 1996, they boosted their own reelection prospects and undercut him by passing welfare reform. But now they don't have the numbers to pass much of anything. Most of the Republicans have endorsed Bush; they could withdraw the endorsements, but that too just might serve Bush's strategy.

For his part, Bush would have to be superhuman not to occasionally wonder whether a constantly blundering Republican House is more trouble than it's worth. A President W. would need a Republican Senate to confirm his nominees and ratify his treaties. But a narrowly Democratic House, unable either to hide its liberalism or to act on it, would allow him to define himself advantageously in opposition. It would free him from responsibility for others' folly the same way the Republican Congress freed Clinton. Conversely, a Republican sweep in 2000 would set Bush up to take the blame for losing the House in 2002: The president's party tends to lose congressional seats in midterm elections.

Congressional Republicans are trying frantically to keep Gov. Bush's mind from wandering down this road. "The message we have to send the governor is if he's going to be president his job is going to be a lot easier if he has a Republican Congress," says Feehery, the Hastert spokesman. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan decided to add another percentage point to their landslides rather than campaign for other Republicans, and paid a price during Watergate and Iran-contra. Then, too, the Senate might not stay Republican. A top Republican campaign official says he's worried about vulnerable seats in Delaware, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington state. Only Nevada, Virginia, and arguably New York look like Republican pick-ups.

Clinton was elected in 1992 even as his fellow Democrats lost seats in Congress. Could something similar happen to Bush? Probably not. The circumstances of 1992 were unusual: There was a strong third-party campaign, and Republican congressional candidates benefited from a long-building conservative trend in public opinion (which Bush père was unable to exploit). Also, ticket-splitting has declined in this decade. If they don't run together, Bush and Congress could end up dragging each other down.

The Republican party has lined up with impressive speed behind Gov. Bush because he's supposed to be good for it. The congressional party's electoral strategy sometimes seems to consist of holding on tight to his coattails. (Never mind that he campaigned for few congressmen in 1996 and 1998.) But Bush is, quite reasonably, going to follow his own interests, as he sees them. The congressmen will have to refrain from giving him an incentive to attack them-and, perhaps, figure out a way to win their elections by themselves.