Michael Gerson acts like President Bush won the 2000 election. It may be a permissible error if you are talking horseshoes and hand grenades, but he’s trying to use Bush’s campaign as some kind of template for GOP revival. He explicitly compares the 2000 rebranding effort of Bush to the 1992 rebranding effort of Bill Clinton. Insofar as Clinton represented a new brand for the Democratic Party, that is because he was part of a new institution (the Democratic Leadership Council) that had different ideas. His campaign’s focus on the struggling economy was strictly tactical (we were recovering from a recession). On substance, Clinton bucked the labor unions in favor of free trade. He espoused more business-friendly policies as part of a overall strategy to reach parity in fundraising again. But he also led with obviously progressive priorities like health care and gay rights in the military and gun control that actually drove a big wedge between the Democratic Party and a big part of Clinton’s winning coalition (much of which is now solidly in the Republican camp).
Clinton had some help from Ross Perot, too. It will never be completely resolved whether Clinton would have won in a straight-up contest against Poppy Bush. I doubt very much that he would have won states like Georgia or Montana in a one-on-one match. But, I’ll grant that Clinton rebranded the party. It’s just that he did it substantively.
Dubya distinguished himself from the cavemen who had impeached Bill Clinton by embracing a federal role in education and, eventually, providing a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. But his ridiculous campaign against Gore was only good enough for him to lose, and that isn’t a prescription for revival.
I know that Gerson isn’t arguing that the next Republican contender copy Bush’s policies, but what else is there to copy, really?
Maybe the trick is to just find one thing (or maybe two) that the candidate actually thinks the government should do. If it’s education, fine. If it’s a trip to Mars, fine. But there has to be something. Romney never found an issue he could be for. In 20 debates, Newt Gingrich is the only candidate I can remember actually having a constructive idea.
Anyway, Bush didn’t win.
