Sunday, July 2, 2000

Bush Is Step Ahead in Swing Dance

Politics: With solid GOP support, he targets undecided voters, while Gore struggles with liberal discontent.

By RONALD BROWNSTEIN, Times Political Writer

WASHINGTON--Behind the symbolism of George W. Bush's efforts last week to court traditionally Democratic minority voters lies a stark reality: He can afford to focus on expanding his coalition precisely because he has consolidated his political base far more successfully than Al Gore.

In recent polls, Bush is consistently attracting support from about 9 in 10 Republicans--a far better showing than either of the last two GOP presidential nominees. Gore, meanwhile, draws only about three-fourths of Democrats.

And while conservative activists have largely acquiesced to Bush's moves toward the center since the GOP primaries, Gore is still facing loud rumbles of discontent from liberal voices as diverse as Ralph Nader, the Green Party's presidential nominee, and the leadership of the United Auto Workers.

This disparity is providing Bush a significant tactical advantage, allowing him to work much earlier and more systematically than Gore on courting the swing voters likely to decide the election.

This week alone, Bush appeared before prominent Latino and African American groups, touted new proposals to help the disabled and praised measures to move welfare recipients into the work force--all with the aim of convincing voters he is "a different kind of Republican," as his aides put it. And with the GOP base already seemingly cemented, Bush aides are openly discussing ways to temper the partisan tone at the party convention to increase the Texas governor's appeal to less ideological independent voters.

"We've been able for the past few months . . . to talk to the swing and independent voters in a concerted way," said one senior Bush advisor.

The aide asserts that Gore, in contrast, has to "aim at his base . . . so [his campaign's] discussion with the independent and swing voters hasn't been able to start."

Gore aides say that analysis overstates Bush's advantage: From the outset, they note, much of the vice president's agenda--from his emphasis on paying off the national debt to his defense of welfare reform--has been aimed squarely at swing voters.

Yet, as Bush advisors note, the Democratic National Committee has been compelled to concentrate its initial pro-Gore TV advertising in states that President Clinton carried in 1996--including some, such as Iowa, considered part of the Democrats' bedrock base. And with Bush running unusually well in local polls, Gore lately has had to visit states, such as Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, that voted consistently Democratic in recent presidential campaigns.

These defensive maneuvers underscore the same phenomenon: At this point, partisan Republicans are lining up behind Bush more enthusiastically than their Democratic counterparts are with Gore.

In a Times Poll last month, 92% of Republicans said they were supporting Bush, while just 72% of Democrats backed Gore. The bipartisan Voter.com/Battleground 2000 poll reached similar results two weeks ago, as did a Gallup/CNN/USA Today survey released Tuesday.

Some of Bush's advantage is offset by the fact that more voters consider themselves Democrats than Republicans, but that difference is relatively slight. According to Pew Research Center polls over the last four months, about 32% of Americans consider themselves Democrats, while 28% call themselves Republicans. That means Bush's vote among his partisans still constitutes a larger share of the overall electorate than Gore's among his.

The recent poll findings came amid Gore's "progress and prosperity" tour designed to jump-start his campaign by linking it to the economic gains of the Clinton years. That theme may still prove powerful for Gore, Democrats believe.

But in the near term, the three-week effort has been hobbled by lackluster events and costly distractions--most prominently the disclosure last week that Justice Department investigators were again recommending that Atty. Gen. Janet Reno appoint a special counsel to investigate Gore's role in 1996 campaign fund-raising.

Bush's success at consolidating the GOP base is especially striking given the defections that hobbled Bob Dole in 1996 and George Bush, the candidate's father, in 1992. With Clinton and independent Ross Perot cutting into their support, neither man won more than 8 of 10 Republicans on election day, according to network exit polls. George W. Bush, by contrast, is enjoying a level of unified party support that Ronald Reagan and Bush's father did in the three elections of the 1980s.

Bush's strength among Republicans is head-turning in a second respect. After his father's presidency disappointed many conservatives, Bush began the campaign suspect on the right. Yet, apart from concerns that he may pick a running mate who supports abortion rights, Bush has faced few threats of defections among conservatives to Pat Buchanan, the anticipated Reform Party presidential nominee.

Several factors appear to explain the GOP coalescence around Bush. Alone at the top of the list, most analysts agree, is the party's desire to repudiate President Clinton by defeating Gore. "Being anti-Gore, and anti-Clinton . . . gives Bush the luxury of a lot of maneuvering room," says veteran conservative consultant Craig Shirley.

Much like Clinton himself in his 1992 campaign, Bush benefits from his party's hunger to return to power after a long exile.

Though it initially hurt Bush with swing voters, the structure of the GOP primary accelerated his progress at unifying Republicans. With Sen. John McCain of Arizona mobilizing a coalition of independents, Democrats and moderate Republicans in what some termed "a hostile takeover" of the party, Bush unexpectedly became positioned as the defender of the GOP base--an association that's stuck despite his moves to the center since.

And finally, despite his gestures toward centrist voters, Bush also has pushed several ambitious proposals with strong appeal for hard-core Republicans, including a sweeping tax cut, partial privatization of Social Security and missile defense.

Gore, by contrast, is facing an ideological cross-fire as he tries to solidify his standing among Democrats.

From the left, he confronts noisy resistance from the United Auto Workers and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, two large unions alienated by the administration's support for free trade. Though neither is likely to endorse Bush, both unions have given visibility to Nader's Green Party candidacy.

Nader is attempting to mobilize liberals around the claim that Clinton and Gore have made the Democratic Party virtually indistinguishable from the GOP. In a few key states, Nader could hurt Gore by taking even a relatively small percentage of liberal votes.

Analysts in both parties, though, say Gore's bigger problem is at the opposite end of the party's spectrum--with culturally conservative Latino and white voters, especially men. The recent Times Poll showed Bush winning nearly one-fourth of moderate-to-conservative Democrats; some surveys have shown the Texan running even with Gore among union voters; new polls show Bush gaining strength among Latinos as well.

Democrats remain optimistic that they can repel those beachheads, largely by highlighting the elements in Bush's agenda that have fortified him with his base. The AFL-CIO, for instance, on Thursday launched a "Texas truth squad" campaign, with union members from Bush's state criticizing his labor record.

The dilemma for Democrats is that the more time and money Gore has to spend recapturing constituencies and states the party usually relies on, the less resources he'll have to target the race's true geographic and demographic battlegrounds.

And those are the targets on which Bush, already, is focusing his fire, day after day.