Bush's Two Sides

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It has always been naive to assume that nicknames and bear hugs would be enough to move legislation, but when Bush has truly engaged--and compromised--as he did on taxes and education, he has been effective. When he has merely repeated a list of principles and freeze-dried phrases, as he did to promote his energy plan and campaign-finance reform, he has been less so. And during the patients' rights fight, the culmination of six years of bloody gridlock, Bush has been trying to make the case by looking into the soul of those who gather around his Cabinet Room table. They are looking right back, questioning his sincerity, demanding signs of good faith and asking after favors. Moderates in particular are suspicious that Bush's charm is meant to obscure his true intent, which in this case might mean doing nothing at all.

Sixty-eight House Republicans supported the broad patients' rights bill two years ago, but Bush says he'll veto it because he thinks it will raise costs and increase the number of uninsured. When he tried the veto gambit in the Senate last month, his counselor, Karen Hughes, advised against it. Be for the people not the corporations, she pleaded. Bush ignored her, and his threat fell flat: nobody knuckled under. So now when he meets with the undecided, they want to know if he really means it. The question comes up at every meeting, forcing Bush to show some spine. "I saw how Bill Clinton used the veto," he told a small group of undecided lawmakers last Thursday. "The President has the final word. If I use it, this will become about the little people vs. the trial lawyers."

The message that Bush means it seems to be getting through this time. "We are trying to feel out the President," says a senior House Republican member who is voting with Bush. "Many of us, when we heard the veto threat, weren't convinced he was serious, because from Day One he has been trying to get this off his plate. But I'm convinced now that there is a line in the sand. I'm not sure where it is, but it's there."

If the veto threat pays off, it will be a vindication for White House strategist Karl Rove and legislative liaison Nick Calio, who were among its chief advocates. They were the targets of big-time sniping last week. Party elders noticed that Calio was out of town last month, on the eve of the disastrous Senate vote on HMO reform, and Rove was with Bush in Europe last week when the House vote was thought to be just days away. "It just doesn't make any sense," says a senior Washington Republican who wonders if Rove is spread too thin.

Of late, Rove has been working harder to tend to the Hill--and he had better work harder still. Bush's veto threat helped pick up a few votes, but not the roughly 20 he needs. Undecideds Chris Smith and Marge Roukema, who listened to the President's pitch one more time in the Speaker's office last Thursday, still were not convinced. If Norwood can be flipped, the White House hopes he'll bring the majority of undecideds along with him. But he rejected the most recent White House offers.

If Bush fails to close the deal, it may be because some legislators appear to bore him. To win a member sometimes means letting them drone on and on. The President's fidgety nature has trouble during those kinds of legislative jawing sessions. So when Duncan Hunter of California hijacks a meeting to talk about defense, Bush is liable to turn off. When Roukema lectures him on HMOs that "practice bottom-line medicine," Bush wears his impatience like a neon top hat. To move more minds, Bush is focusing hard on lobbying--while he and his team whittle away at his position on how much freedom patients should have to sue their doctors. But compromising too much could send a signal that he can be rolled.

The President wouldn't have to sweat so hard if he hadn't started so late, argue Republicans on the Hill who are disappointed with the uneven White House performance. "It's like in and out," a senior House G.O.P. leadership aide says. "They're in, they're out, they're in, they're out. You're never quite sure where they are." Bush unveiled an energy plan and then disappeared, they complain. On campaign finance, he didn't lend a hand. Requests for protection of budget items are mocked as mere pork--a point Representative Saxby Chambliss, whose Georgia district may lose its B-1 bomber contingent, raised with Bush in one of their meetings. "Mr. President, I'd like for you to come to Georgia next week," Chambliss half joked. "We'll send a B-1 up here to get you. Now if you want to talk about patients' bill of rights, we'll talk."

The complaint is bipartisan. For all of Bush's promises to reach across the aisle, says California Democrat Ellen Tauscher, he hasn't done so. Though Tauscher backs Bush on taxes, trade and missile defense, the response has been underwhelming. "I felt like the ugly duckling at the prom," she says with a laugh. Bush, she believes, "is running against me in '02." It's easy for Bush to have Ted Kennedy to the White House, Tauscher says--his seat isn't ripe for a Republican takeover. "The centrists are a different bag, and Bush has yet to really deal with us."