White House Week
If You Carry a Big Stick, May as Well Start Swinging It
President Bush plans to haul out his cudgel this week for the final push into the November 7 elections. Senior White House officials say that Bush will shift from mostly doing private fund-raisers to speaking at public rallies where he will pound the Democrats hard in order to rev up Republican turnout. He won't shy away from defending the Iraq war, either, though many GOP insiders fear that gambit is a political loser because the conflict is so unpopular. Indeed, some Republican strategists were pointedly unhappy that the president spent so much time on Iraq at his press conference last week. But a senior Bush adviser says the president wants to draw clear lines and challenge the Democrats. "The Democratic strategy in Iraq is not to win, it's to get ready to leave," he says. "That's a telling difference, and it has potency politically."
Pinch Me to Make Sure I'm Not Dreaming
With Democrats poised to take control of the House one week out from Election Day, long-suffering Democrats are still waiting for the other shoe to drop. "It's been so long I don't know what a Democratic victory looks like," says a veteran Democrat strategist. The real test, Democrats say, will be the question of turnout, a contest Republicans have handily won in the past two cycles. This year, Dems are counting on repeated Republican woes to keep the GOP base home. Adding to their ammunition, Democrats are citing a bitterly debated Iraq resolution passed by the House of Representatives in June that promised a "completion of the mission" while rejecting a timeline for withdrawal. Passed largely along party lines, the resolution is popping up on Democrats' attack ads, where a vote for it is characterized as support for "Bush's failing Iraq policies."
Hey, Dems, How About a Little Help Here?
Plans to reform Social Security and promote trade in China still top George Bush's agenda for his final two years, however the elections go. In fact, Bush aides say that Social Security change may be more likely should the Democrats take the House. That's because the White House would try to tap the conservative Democratic "Blue Dogs" to fashion a reform that will win passage. Much of the economic side of the agenda will be handed off to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, whose strong ties to Wall Street, business, and China should aide the administration's bid to boost Asia trade. Aides say Bush may even get a shot at naming another Supreme Court justice, his third.
Perhaps Iraqis Could Use a Strongman
A U.S. spokesman in Iraq last week flatly denied the claim by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he did not know of a U.S.-Iraqi raid in Baghdad that nabbed a group of Shiite militia: "Despite what Prime Minister Maliki said, [the raid] was from a set of preapproved targets that he personally approved." Some see Maliki playing to his Shiite base, as he tries to deal with Moqtada al-Sadr, whose militia and political organization make him a rising power in the Shiite majority. But others ask whether Maliki has the will and ability to rein in death squads and disband antigovernment militias. "He's pledged to do it by the beginning of the year," one official said. "But will he, and is it going to be too late?"
PHOTO OP: 11:16 a.m., October 25, White House East Room
Political adviser Karl Rove (at left) and other staffers take in President Bush's press conference last week. Some GOP strategists wish Bush had focused less on Iraq and instead had talked more generally about the war on terrorism. But one aide called the war in Iraq the "800-pound gorilla in the room," requiring Bush to try again to make his case.
With Kenneth T. Walsh, Bret Schulte, Paul Bedard and Linda Robinson
This story appears in the November 6, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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