11/29/00 3:15 p.m.
For Conservative Bipartisanship
An agenda for governing.

By NR’s editors

ore than a few Republicans have wondered, during the protracted political wrangling in Florida, whether this presidency would be worth all the fuss. Republicans have only the most tenuous control of the House and Senate; Bush will not have a mandate; Democrats may harp on the "illegitimacy" of a president who did not win a plurality of the popular vote; a recession could be in the offing.

Congressional Republicans have their own worries. They fear that the close election results will reinforce Bush's inclination to be "a uniter, not a divider," and that conservative voters will be disappointed at how little of ideological savor will be achieved even with a Republican president and Congress. They fear that if all conservatives see by November 2002 is an expanded federal role in education and a new subsidy for prescription drugs, the result will be major losses in the midterm elections.

What President Bush will need is an agenda that catches fire without blowing up. Is such a thing possible? Yes, if Bush understands that bipartisanship need not be mush. The most successful feat of bipartisan governance in modern times occurred, after all, during Ronald Reagan's first term. Reagan's agenda did not pass because Tip O'Neill wanted him to succeed. It passed because Reagan's staff identified rank-and-file Democratic members of Congress who supported tax cuts, spending restraint, and the defense buildup.

The prerequisite for bipartisan success under Bush is not that he meet with Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle. Nor is it that he appoint Democrats to his Cabinet, although it may make sense to appoint the occasional Democrat who 1) agrees with Bush on issues or 2) is a senator from a state with a Republican governor who can appoint his replacement. It is that Bush build coalitions, on an issue-by-issue basis, including most Republicans and some Democrats. Today, there is a bipartisan majority of the House for rebuilding our defenses in general and establishing missile defenses in particular, against the marriage penalty and the estate tax, for individual tax credits for health insurance, and against gun control.

It may be possible to win Democratic votes for more than this. According to exit polls, more voters supported Bush's Social Security reform proposal than supported Bush himself. Having wisely maintained flexibility on the details during the campaign, Bush may well be able to negotiate a deal. He ought to enlist the help of John McCain, who has expressed interest in an investment-based reform of the program.

If that reform looks impossible to achieve in the current Congress, Bush should take small steps that improve the prospects for it later. The expansion of tax shelters for middle-class savings already has very strong support in the Congress (a bill to that effect passed the House 401-25, with the Gephardts and Boniors in the lonely opposition). Bush may even want to devise his own version of the Clinton-Gore idea of using tax credits to promote private investment.

During the campaign, Bush won the argument over cutting taxes across the board. Getting a tax cut of the size he wants, however, will be difficult, not only because the election was so close but because many Republicans did not run on it. A softening economy might help Bush rally support for his tax cut; but conservatives need not be disappointed if he does not get the full proposal enacted.

The dicey political circumstances of the moment make it even more important than usual that Bush pick smart, principled officials for his administration. His selection of Andrew Card as his chief of staff is not a hopeful sign in this regard. The trouble is not so much that Card is the sort of moderate "pragmatist" who made a hash of Bush's father's administration, although he is. It is that it suggests that W. might repeat his father's basic mistake when it came to personnel policy: choosing subordinates who had a record of loyalty to the Bushes, or managerial skills, rather than people who had good ideas. (Early in the first Bush administration, an official infamously remarked that he wanted colleagues with "mortgages, not agendas.")

For all the worries, however, Bush continues to deserve support from conservatives. Close elections, even those tainted by allegations of illegitimacy, need not spell doom for the winner. John F. Kennedy became president by a slim popular-vote margin, but his administration reassured a nervous public. The Democrats had a very good election in 1962, losing only four seats in the House and gaining three in the Senate, and won a landslide in 1964. Bush's task now is to reassure a public that has never really experienced unified Republican government. Expectations for him are low, just as they were during the presidential debates. Our bet is that he can once again exceed them.