Economy staggers, but war may still buoy Bush

It is almost a political cliché: Now that President Bush has ousted Saddam Hussein, he must focus on the lackluster economy to avoid his father's fate.

That is true, but not the whole truth, say political analysts and Republican advisers. The world of 2003 is different from the world of 1991, when the first President Bush booted Iraq out of Kuwait, scored a 90 percent approval rating, and then appeared unconcerned about domestic issues and lost reelection. By 1991, the cold war was over and foreign threats seemed distant.

Now, as the younger Bush's team lays the groundwork for his reelection campaign, national security is once again just as important as the economy - marking a return to the political calculus of the cold war.

"Security" - both national and economic - will be the key issue of the 2004 election, said Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, last week. "When this war ends, we still will have a very dangerous enemy in the form of international and transnational terrorism," Mr. Rove told the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) convention.

"It's not like it's going to be, 'Iraq is over. America can withdraw within itself again.'"

Unlike the last war against Iraq, which was a discrete episode, the current war is framed as part of the larger war on terrorism - an issue that won't vanish anytime soon.

And so the current President Bush - with the Sept. 11 attacks and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under his belt - begins the campaign with a built-in advantage over the Democratic nominee, even if he or she has direct national-security experience, such as military service, analysts say.

"Now the slogan ought to be 'It's not just the economy, stupid,'" says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "We have returned to the days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when for 40 years national security was as important as the economy in predicting election results."

Of the three major election predictors - the economy, national security, and scandal - only two apply, so far, as the Bush White House has avoided the taint of scandal. There is also no sign that Bush will be challenged for the Republican nomination.

Still, this White House is taking no chances on 2004. Even since the start of the Iraq war, Bush has regularly raised the economy and other domestic concerns, such as Medicare and education. Tuesday, he signaled that he'd be willing to take less than his proposed $726 billion in tax cuts over 10 years, stating, "We need tax relief totaling at least $550 billion to make sure our economy grows." That's the figure approved by the House. Over the next two weeks, 25 administration officials will fan out across the country to promote Bush's economic plan. Wednesday, Bush speaks on the economy in St. Louis.

Meanwhile, planning for the 2004 campaign continues apace, as Rove travels around the country speaking at fundraisers, giving speeches, and quietly offering advice to Republicans on how to frame discussion on the war and domestic issues.

The Bush White House has two sets of memories to keep hubris at bay: the elder Bush's failed reelection bid and the current president's political near-death experience in 2000, when he lost the popular vote after his team predicted a big victory.

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