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Bush himself is like a one-man national Rorschach test for what kind of nation we want to be and what kind of President we want to have. In himself and in his policies, he has charted a course away from the Little America that many saw as the destiny of the U.S. in the 21st century. Instead he has spoken loudly and carried a big stick, and expanded the role of America in the world without apology or much diplomacy. As President, he has moved away from the compromises of triangulation and coalition building to the politics of certainty. He may be wrong, he may be right, but he is never in doubt.
Republican and Democratic voters now disagree on nearly every important measure of Bush's presidency--on whether he has enhanced this country's stature in the world, whether he's been too partisan, whether he has a good grasp of the issues, whether he favors the rich, whether he has been too quick to inject his own moral and religious beliefs into politics. Asked by TIME/CNN pollsters to describe Bush, Republicans over and over again used words like "decisive," "determined" and "strong." Democrats saw the same man in reverse image as "cocky," "arrogant" and "boneheaded." How we see George Bush tells us as much about how we see the world as about who he is.
The national coming together and one-size-fits-all patriotism that America saw in the months that followed 9/11 is now a distant memory. In many ways it has been Bush himself who shattered that comity. He came to Washington promising to unite and not divide, and he has made good on his pledge. Republicans are as united behind him as they have ever been, especially those on the religious right who were ignored in 1992 and are now being courted; Democrats are nearly as solid--and growing more so--in their disapproval. There is probably no better evidence that the national argument over Bush is turning us into a nation of Toby Keiths and Dixie Chicks than the fact that both parties, after spending the last few election cycles chasing swing voters, have turned their attention, money and early energies for 2004 to their hard-core supporters. For years pollsters said America was a 40-40-20 country--that is, 40% Republican, 40% Democrat and 20% independent. Now, they say, it's a 45-45-10 nation--with even fewer than that 10% truly up for grabs.
IT'S THE MAN, NOT THE POLICIES
George Bush is the son of a President who couldn't convince the country that he stood for anything. He succeeded a President whose survival depended on the public's capacity to divorce what it thought of his personal values from what it thought of his public ones. Bush has done the opposite of both. He has wrapped his presidency in who he is and what he believes. So it's no surprise that the theme of Bush's first presidential ad of the campaign is essentially: I, George Bush, am the war against terrorism. "Some are now attacking the President for attacking the terrorists," the ad suggests darkly. After him, the deluge.