The president’s low approval numbers have been the preeminent fodder for discussion in the country’s political classes for months, but especially of late. This discussion has primarily focused on two topics: how the president’s numbers have sunk so far and what he and the administration can do to reverse the decline, which has spanned nearly the entirety of his second term.
The consensus answer to the former is multi-faceted. Persistent bad news from Iraq, administration incompetence in reaction to Hurricane Katrina and the Dubai Ports Controversy, runaway federal spending, the empirical manner in which the White house has treated congress and disaffected congressional Republicans (who have thus exhibited little reluctance in increasingly criticizing the president), have all been mentioned as factors; and I would agree that all, more or less, are responsible.
The answers to the latter piece of discussion—what the White House can do to rectify the president’s sagging poll numbers—have been just as varied. Some have suggested a shakeup of the White House staff and cabinet, while others have opined that nothing can be done, the president has lost all power and influence in Washington and will ride out the remainder of his term a feckless lame duck. I dissent from this view.
I believe there are a number of actions the president can take to reinvigorate his presidency and reestablish it as a force in Washington (though I do not necessarily think the White House is not a force today). But before I enumerate these, I must first acknowledge that the task of reinvigorating a presidency in its second term is swimming against the swift and powerful current of history. Over the past century all presidents fortunate to have been elected to a second term have experienced problems; from Roosevelt, to Reagan, to Clinton, and now to Bush. Roosevelt was saved by the extension of World War II upon America, while presidents Reagan and Clinton were able to recover from the Iran-Contra and Lewinsky scandals to leave office fairly popular. The current president can do it too, but it will require several actions, at the minimum.
One of those actions, and in regards to the notion that the president needs to overhaul his staff, would be adding a few outside faces. I agree this would have a positive effect, though not a drastic one, especially within an administration that has presided over some of the most consequential times in recent history. Fatigue and burnout among the president’s staff is a reality. Some new faces, with an added, fresh perspective, would help.
But then again, this is already happening. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has resigned and been replaced with OMB Director Joshua Bolten, who has been given a free reign by the president to reshape the White House staff. Mr. Bolten’s scrutiny should be directed towards White House communications, an area within the administration especially in need of attention and alteration.
Following the ‘04 victory the administration phased out of campaign mode, a dire mistake in a long, tough war exhausting upon Americans’ patience, as America’s engagement in Iraq is. In the Camp David planning retreat following the 9/11 attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested the wartime communications effort be run "like a political campaign with daily talking points. Sustaining requires a broad base of domestic support. Broad, not narrow. This is a marathon, not a sprint. It will be years and not months."1.
Why the administration has not followed such an approach is beyond me. A media hostile to the effort in Iraq, and to the president himself, is not going to tell the full story there. They have deliberately ignored the rebuilding efforts, the improvements in Iraqi civil society, the construction of a viable and functioning republic, and the heroism of brave Iraqis and Americans fighting against Islamo-fascist terrorists. It is up to the administration to talk about these aspects; a task they have been mostly negligent in so far.
In terms of American strategy on the ground in Iraq, I by no means urge the president to alter anything. In fact, I believe the current approach should be left intact. Regardless of much of the current conventional wisdom within Washington, the strategy in Iraq is indeed working, slowly but steadily. The progress is there for anyone interested to see. Altering or vacating the current approach would likely suspend that progress and aggravate the tense but stable situation on the ground.
No, it is the administration’s public defense and discussion of the effort in Iraq, not its strategy on the ground, that needs adjustment and improvement. Whether this requires a new communications team I’m not sure, but the White House needs to get serious about it’s wartime communication obligations and employ a sustained public defense commensurate to the consequential nature our effort in Iraq is. The stakes there are simply too high and the cost of failing too great to countenance a sub-par public information campaign.
With all of this said the administration’s problems extend beyond mere communication deficiencies and no communication effort on Iraq, no matter how effective it is, will cure all that ails the president’s political standing. As I already have acknowledged, public apprehension and pessimism over Iraq is the main source of the president’s political weakness, but it is not the only source.
George W. Bush prides himself on having a presidency guided by big ideals, ideals worthy of the attention and advocacy of the president of the United States. In his first term these grand ideals and issues were tax cuts, education reform, and the prescription drug benefit; with the ultimate but unexpected issue of the War on Terror outclassing all. In the second term there was originally comprehensive social security reform, which, because of entrenched interests in opposition to any reform and hyper-partisan demagoguery, flopped.
Following that the administration has adopted no new substantial domestic issue in which to undertake. As a result, the administration has been largely adrift, stuck on the sidelines and relegated to responding to events and circumstances instead of shaping them.
To rectify this, I make a few suggestions. First, complete the last real issue remaining from the president’s first term: permanent extension of the tax cuts. Accomplishing this will have two positive effects, at the very least: it will insure the continued health of an already strong economy and it will remind conservatives, who may be currently disenchanted with him, why they supported him in the first place and why he and Republicans, despite their flaws, are better than the alternative. After all, does anyone really wonder what Democrats, who are openly proud of their opposition to lower taxes, would do to the Bush tax cuts if they were in power?
Thirdly, the president needs to find one or two domestic issues in which to support and promote. One possibility is publicly pressing the importance of confirming his lower-court judicial nominees. Robert Novak has documented the senatorial inaction on many of the president’s nominees, and a little presidential publicity on the issue is what is needed to alleviate this. The state of the judiciary is of high salience among national conservatives and is a sure political winner, for the president and Republicans. More importantly, the judiciary is in need of more judges who adhere to the constitution and it is incumbent upon the president to do what is necessary to see that action is taken on his own judicial nominees.
Other issues the president could take up are tax-code reform and health savings accounts. Currently our tax-code is a monstrosity of a headache, as hours and money are wasted simply trying to correctly fill out tax returns. Simplifying the code would relieve a substantial burden upon the American economy.
In regards to health saving accounts, a little free-market reform is exactly what is required to lower the costs of health care. When consumer choice is entered into the equation, costs decrease while quality increases.
Arguments like these, expanded upon of course, are the types that the president should be making repetitively.
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I would like to end in much the same place in which I began. The prospect of reinvigorating a presidency in it’s second term is daunting, given historical precedent and contemporary circumstances. The president may very well enact all the measures I suggested and still experience minimal improvement in his public popularity. The situation in Iraq, far more than any other issue, will ultimately determine public perception of the president.
Though it improves over there by the day, inching closer and closer to viable democracy, the American public’s mood continues to sour. At this point, barring some unforeseeable breakthrough or development, this trend is likely to continue. As long as there is a substantial American presence in Iraq Americans’ dour outlook is likely to persist and the president’s popularity is likely to wallow in the low thirties or forties. Staying the course is and will be politically costly.
The only question then becomes whether the president is willing to trade political popularity for persistence in Iraq. Given the president’s tendency, for better or for worse, to ignore the ever-changing winds of political pressure, I believe it is clear that it is a price he is ready to pay, and has been paying. The right thing to do is not always the popular thing to do, but that does not mean it is not worth doing. This fact the president understands, and for that I profoundly admire him.
If approval numbers in the low thirties are the cost of staying the course and finishing the job in Iraq, then so be it. It is worth it.
1. Woodward, Bob (2002). Bush at War. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
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