President George Bush signs the 1990 Farm Bill into law. He is joined by (left to right) Senators Richard Lugar, Patrick Leahy and Bob Dole, Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter, and Senators Thad Cochran and Kit Bond
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Catering to the right has also turned the President into something of a political contortionist. Even as he sought to convince Americans that he was a kinder, gentler incarnation of his predecessor, he was straining to appease conservatives by opposing most gun-control efforts and proposing a constitutional amendment against flag burning. By trying to walk simultaneously in opposite directions, he put his presidency in a schizophrenic straitjacket.
From the outset of his Administration, Bush calculated that he could keep his poll numbers up merely by reminding voters that he was aware of America's domestic problems. The White House based this strategy on pollster Robert Teeter's surveys and focus groups, which showed that while Americans were concerned about drugs, education and the environment, they were also deeply suspicious of any federal attempts to solve the problems. Thus Bush promised to be the "education President" and announced some badly needed educational goals last year. But for nearly two years he retained in his Cabinet an Education Secretary, Lauro Cavazos, who, by his own staff's admission, was ineffective. He postponed politically painful choices on energy, housing and transportation policy but has flown to the West Coast twice in 14 months to plant a single tree in the name of environmentalism. Midway through his term, some of his own aides seem weary of the shell game. "You see a lot of blue- ribbon panels and commissions around here," says a staff member. "It's so much easier to do something innocuous than something real."
Even where Bush has made improvements in the American condition, he has worked hard to keep them secret. Though Bush privately regards the budget pact as his greatest domestic achievement to date, he declared in public two months ago that the deal made him "gag." Though Sununu rightly claims that the clean-air legislation "will change America," the chief of staff tried to cancel a public bill-signing ceremony for the landmark measure. When old friends press Bush on this refusal to trumpet his accomplishments, he responds by saying he will ultimately be judged "by deeds, not words." But they suspect that Bush is leery of calling attention to anything that might upset conservatives.
Despite the President's constant wooing, the hard right never seems satisfied. In the aftermath of the budget debacle, a variety of conservative luminaries began clamoring about a possible challenge to Bush in 1992. Though they stand no chance of ousting Bush alone, the right-wingers could help Democrats by sitting on their hands in 1992, narrowing G.O.P. margins in key states. In an attempt to co-opt this volatile faction, Bush will spend the next two years being "against" things conservatives loathe: quotas, taxes, mandated government benefits, anything that can be termed liberal or Democratic. The idea isn't to get anything accomplished; it is to burnish Bush's conservative credentials as he prepares for re-election. Says an official: "There are some things you want to have a fight on."
Quite a few things are worth fighting over, in fact, but all too often Bush has found himself in the wrong corner. On issues like extending opportunities to minorities and cutting the deficit, for example, the President has permitted his indecision and fear of the right to overrule his better instincts. It is a pattern that, in the short term, may get him re-elected in 1992. It is not one that will, as Bush promised in his nomination speech of 1988, "build a better America."