[PEN-L:33331] US: The emerging centralized state

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

New York Times

December 22, 2002
Shift of Power to White House Reshapes Political Landscape
By ADAM NAGOURNEY


President Bush has created one of the most powerful White Houses
in at least a generation, prominent Democrats and Republicans
say, reshaping the Washington political equation in a way that
provides him both considerable opportunity and peril in the year
ahead.

With the all-but-certain rise of his close ally, Senator Bill
Frist of Tennessee, as Republican leader, the president has
consolidated what even Democrats say is a stunning degree of
authority in the White House at the halfway point of his
four-year term.

The perception that Mr. Bush and his chief political counsel,
Karl Rove, orchestrated a coup in the Senate ? notwithstanding
the official White House denials that it had anything to do with
Senator Trent Lott's decision on Friday to give up his leadership
post ? has only enhanced what veteran political strategists say
is the political potency of the White House.

"This White House is very, very strong," said William J. Bennett,
a prominent conservative who had pressed for Mr. Lott's removal.
"There's now a unified theory of the White House in this town: It
is strong, it is competent, it's all going in the same direction,
and it doesn't leak."

Robert S. Strauss, the former Democratic chairman and adviser to
presidents, including President Lyndon B. Johnson, said: "George
Bush and several talented people around him have made the White
House a power center in ways that I haven't seen in a long, long
time ? all the way back to Lyndon Johnson. That is a big
statement."

Republicans and Democrats said that the power shift, coming as
the Republican Party was struggling to contain damage created by
the fight over Mr. Lott, could provide some important political
benefits to this president as he moved into his re-election
campaign next year.

Most significant, with Mr. Bush's allies in place on Capitol
Hill, and memories strong of the decisive role Mr. Bush played in
electing a Republican Congress, they said that the president was
very likely to enjoy more influence over what Congress does ? or
does not do ? than any president since Johnson. Johnson himself
was a majority leader when he left the Senate to become John F.
Kennedy's candidate for vice president.

For now, though, the abrupt leadership change in the Senate will
make it much harder for Republicans to quickly enact their
ambitious agenda when Congress returns next month, Republican and
Democratic officials said. [Page 40.]

Several Republican officials argued that what their party
accomplishes in Congress next year will be critical to offsetting
lingering damage from the Lott fracas. They said the party was
likely to push domestic and other initiatives that were
specifically designed to enhance its standing with black voters ?
and, more significantly, moderate white voters, who are central
to Mr. Bush's re-election and who, White House officials say,
might be chased away by the perception that their party was
hostile to civil rights.

"The future of the party is defined by the president and the
policies that he proposes and by the actions that he takes," a
senior White House official said yesterday. "The president will
now have two years to focus on the future, and his message will
drown out lingering memories of this episode. The party is
defined by its standard-bearer, not by events that swirl around
somebody else who may be important to the party but is not the
standard-bearer."

Still, a number of officials and historians warned that
inevitably there are risks to the dominant position Mr. Bush and
Mr. Rove now enjoy in Washington. History is filled with
instances of presidents who played too grand a hand in the flush
of victory, and paid a price for it. One notable example is the
Congressional rebuff to Franklin D. Roosevelt when he tried to
pack the Supreme Court with his allies after he won 46 of the 48
states in 1936.

Beyond that, the perception that Mr. Bush now has a friend in the
Senate could complicate his dealings with the new Congress
because of the historical assertion of independence by members of
the Senate. For all the talk of a new cooperative relationship in
a government now completely ruled by Republicans, it might be in
Mr. Frist's interest to defy this White House in some very public
way to ward off the perception that he is its puppet, several
Democrats said.

Before he announced his decision, Mr. Lott, of Mississippi, made
no secret of his displeasure at what he suggested was an campaign
of White House leaks intended to discredit him. As a result, Mr.
Lott and his conservative friends in the Senate might be less
than cooperative with this administration. As it is, the
Republicans enjoy a majority of only one in the Senate ? enough
to win a straight-out vote, which is rarely the way Senate
decisions are made.

"It certainly appears that he's got more control over Congress,"
Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, said of
Mr. Bush. "But every member of Congress understands that the
president doesn't have a vote on the Hill. Being independent from
the president is both mandated by the Constitution ? and often
mandated by your pollster."

The perception that Mr. Bush enjoys such control in Congress
could turn out to be a gift to the half-dozen or so Democrats who
are seeking to challenge him in 2004. Such a perception makes it
easier for them to blame the president for a rise in joblessness,
or turmoil on Wall Street, or a misstep in a war in Iraq or the
administration's effort to contain terrorism.

"They are now the responsible administration," said Robert
Dallek, the historian. "Now it's their man in the Senate. He will
be a transparent ally of the White House, and problems that arise
are going to be tied more than ever to the White House."

For all that, even Democrats said there were worse things in
Washington than to be viewed as the most powerful player in town,
particularly going into the re-election campaign.

Members of each party say the fact that Mr. Bush is where he is
today ? 25 months after he won the presidency while losing the
popular vote ? is the product of the course of history in his
first two years in the White House and of what many argued was
the administration's repeated ability to shape events, rather
than be shaped by them.

Mr. Bush's stature was enhanced by the way he led the nation
after the terrorist attacks, establishing him as an
overwhelmingly popular president. It was that popularity, and an
understanding by the White House of the way the attacks had
altered the political landscape, that led to the Republican sweep
in the midterm election, further enhancing Mr. Bush's authority.

And it was in no small part the role that Mr. Bush played in
driving the Republican victory last November that gave the White
House the authority it needed to maneuver over the last two
weeks.

Some historians suggested that given the history of the Senate,
as well as the Republicans' narrow margin of control there, it
will be just a matter of time before Republican lawmakers begin
marching away from the White House.

"The Senate as an institution remains as powerful today as it was
the day before yesterday," said Walter Dean Burnham, a professor
of government at the University of Texas.

And Mr. Strauss, the veteran Democrat, said that Mr. Bush would
find there is "a price you pay" for being a power center in
Washington. "There is no free lunch," he said. "That inevitably
creates resentment in the legislative branch."

But Mr. Strauss was quick to add that it was worth it. "It sure
is nice to have when you're president, let me tell you," he said.
"The alternative ain't worth a damn."

Article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/22/politics/22BUSH.html