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President Bush: A radical with a plan (Steven E. Schier, 7/30/03, The Hill)

Bush's goal is a big one--to make the Republicans the natural, default party of government. Karl Rove, the president's chief political strategist, frequently mentions durable GOP dominance as a major goal of the Bush presidency. Bush seeks lasting conservative rule over American politics, completion of the rightward revolution begun by Ronald Reagan. The Bush administration is working steadily to create conservative dominance over political institutions, party and interest group alignments and the terms of policy debate.

In the terms of Yale University political scientist Stephen Skowronek, Bush is an "orthodox innovator" trying to adapt the Reagan approach for the 21st century. As James K. Polk restored the Democratic Party in the 1840s and Teddy Roosevelt reinvigorated the GOP at the turn of the 20th century, so Bush hopes to create a new Republican political coalition than can dominate national politics long after he leaves the White House.

The risk for such orthodox-innovators, according to Skowronek, is that their innovations split their coalitions and end their party's dominance, as Roosevelt's progressivism divided the GOP in 1912. So far, Bush has avoided that fate.

It's actually even more radical than that, because what TR and John McCain (who consciously patterned himself after Roosevelt) both tried to do was to widen the Party's appeal by moving it Left, towards where non-Republicans were. What Mr. Bush proposes is to move the Party to the Right and move people who aren't now Republicans to the Right with it. One example may suffice to demonstrate: vouchers. The mainstream of the Party--at least the elected officials--is ill-disposed towards educational vouchers, because they fear their constituents anger at a system that would allow blacks kids from the inner-city to attend what are now predominantly white schools. Mr. Bush, by pushing vouchers, is using a conservative idea--bringing market forces to bear on education and fostering private options--that appeals to those voters who are least likely to vote Republican at this point: blacks. The difference between the TR approach and the Bush approach makes the latter's plan even more audacious and potentially revolutionary. Had TR succeeded he'd have changed the GOP and the nation for the worse (Wilson proved the latter). If Mr. Bush succeeds he may transform the Party and the country for the better. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 30, 2003 4:59 PM