Published on Wednesday, January 10, 2001 in the Washington Post Operation Divide and Discredit by Robert L. Borosage Bipartisan bromides about the Bush administration are like Muzak -- inescapable, unending and stultifying. They slight the challenge that Bush faces and the threat that he poses. And, as Dubya would say, they "misunderestimate" him.

Bush's operatives know what voters said in this election. As Marshall Wittman of the right-wing Hudson Institute summarized, "The left won this election. If you add the votes of Nader to Gore, you have a majority electorate. And they knocked off several Republican senators." Al Gore and Ralph Nader totaled the largest center-left vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Moreover, Gore's message and issues were far more popular than he was. An Election Night poll done by Greenberg Associates for the Institute for America's Future showed that voters overwhelmingly preferred Gore's core populist message to Bush's conservative themes. And they greatly favored Gore's positions on Social Security, prescription drugs, investment in education and what to do with the surplus.

Bush ran close enough to steal the race only by blurring the differences on issues, painting himself as a "uniter, not a divider," while his campaign assailed Gore as a liar who would say anything to win. Bush made up on character concerns what he lost on platform, aidedby Gore's erratic performance in the debates and elsewhere. Republicans in the House also survived largely by cross-dressing on issues, while attacking their opponents' personal or political vulnerabilities.

Bush is taking an office he did not win, leading a conservative movement that is running on empty. He faces a growing progressive coalition armed with a majoritarian message and agenda. An accidental president, he has little choice but to find ways to weaken and divide his opponents. Bipartisan posturing will simply be a tactic in that effort.

That political imperative will make politics in the Bush years especially poisonous. Remember, Bush was tutored by the late Lee Atwater, a reactionary Republican operative famous for rubbing social divides raw -- race, gays, guns, abortion, God -- to divide working people from one another. Rather than be lulled by the Bush post-election bonhomie, Democrats would be well advised to remember how Bush responded in Florida with the election in the balance. He presented himself as above the fray while his operatives employed whatever means were necessary -- from rabid officials to paid shock troops to partisan judges -- to stop the recount, even as they intoned a disciplined, Orwellian message that Gore was trying to steal the election.

Bush's presidency will likely exhibit the same brass-knuckle politics. Bush will present himself as above the party disputes, seeking bipartisan support for modest measures -- sort of Al Gore minus -- on education, prescription drugs, faith-based social programs, military spending. He'll push his position, but accept compromise if frustrated. He'll bore forth with soporific appeals to the common good.

But beneath the surface, it is payoff and payback time. He'll pay off the wealthy whom he once described jokingly as "my base," with tax cuts and regulatory rollback. Chief of staff Andrew Card -- the auto industry's lead lobbyist against fuel efficiency standards and global warming reforms -- is but the first of the corporate servitors who will staff the regulatory agencies. Former New Jersey governor Christine Whitman is advertised as a pro-choice moderate, but earned her appointment to head the Environmental Protection Agency by embracing Bush's oxymoronic policy of corporate "voluntary enforcement."

John Ashcroft's nomination to be attorney general is a direct payoff to the Pat Robertson right. If confirmed, Ashcroft will spearhead the rollback of civil rights enforcement, while serving up conservative activist judges for nomination to the federal bench.

And while Bush stays positive, his administration will seek systematically to weaken the progressive base. A central target will be the union movement, which ran an unparalleled voter mobilization effort this fall. A gelded National Labor Relations Board will allow corporations to trample worker organizing. The Labor and Justice departments will investigate unions inside and out, while House Minority Whip Tom "the Hammer" DeLay pushes anti-labor legislation. Naming Linda Chavez for labor secretary -- an ideologue who doesn't believe in a minimum wage for the country or apparently for her own domestic help -- was an intentional thumb in the eye of AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

While Bush mangles unity messages, his operatives will be running wedge politics -- pushing off gay marriage, partial-birth abortion and other hot-button issues. Bush may talk about adding minorities to Republican ranks, but his administration will be practicing division, using reapportionment and appointments to turn African Americans and Latinos on one another.

Bipartisanship will also be used to divide Democrats. Bush will deal directly with conservative Democrats such as John Breaux or Charlie Stenholm, not with Democratic leaders Daschle and Gephardt. He'll find plenty of conservative Democrats happy to play.

So while the White House is crooning about cooperation, the back rooms are laying plans that could make this the most partisan and poisonous of administrations. Conservatives are losing the argument with the American people, so they have little choice but to try to discredit and divide their opponents. Comatose Senate Democrats better wake up.

The writer is co-director of the Campaign for America's Future.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

-- cat (cat@scratch.post), January 16, 2001

Answers

NEW-AGE=POLITICS!!!

MIRRORS YOU GOTTA USE LOTSA MIRRORS!!

AND PLENTY OF SMOKE!!!

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), January 16, 2001.