DLC | Blueprint Magazine | March 23, 2004 The New Nixon George W. Bush is sacrificing the nation's long term economic health for his short term political gain -- just like Richard Nixon in 1972. By Ed Kilgore Table of Contents White House political guru Karl Rove likes to think of his boss as the political reincarnation of William McKinley, who in 1897 created a Republican majority that lasted for a generation. Many conservatives prefer the model of Ronald Reagan, the sunnily optimistic tax-cutter and defense champion. Inevitably, many parallels are also found between Bush 41 and Bush 43, especially among Democrats who like the way the first Bush presidency ended. But as he begins his campaign for re-election, the presidency of George W. Bush bears a ghostly resemblance to that of a very different man who staked his reputation on foreign policy, pioneered the shameless use of cultural wedge issues, and gambled his country's economic future on short-term stimulus synchronized with the electoral calendar: Richard Milhous Nixon. Nixon's political heritage has been largely obscured by the disgrace attending his forced resignation over Watergate, and the praise earned by his opening of relations with the People's Republic of China and his nonproliferation efforts with the Soviet Union. But he was, above all, a political animal, focused to an obsessive extent on creation of a "New Majority" for his party, and willing to use domestic policy as a highly calibrated strategic instrument to attract key swing voter categories -- just like Bush. Looking back on Nixon's 1972 campaign for re-election reveals an array of jarring similarities to the current president's unfolding campaign for re-election this year: Wrapping the president in the office and the flag. The 1972 Nixon campaign risked one of the worst acronyms in political history -- CREEP, for Committee to Re-Elect the President -- to endlessly hammer home the point that its chief was not just a candidate, but the president of the United States. It was the original Rose Garden campaign, deploying the president in controlled settings that displayed the trappings of his office, and sequestering him to discharge the global responsibilities that uniquely burdened him. Nixon used his foreign policy powers -- especially his diplomacy toward China and the Soviet Union and his ability to control U.S. operations in Vietnam -- with a constant eye to their political impact, and to the unsettling effect they had on the opposition. Anyone who has paid attention to Bush's campaign appearances during and after the 2002 elections has seen a refined extension of Nixon's 1972 tactics. These include the highly visible use of Air Force One, the frequent stops at military bases, and the constant invocation of 9/11 imagery. Bush's famous landing in a flight suit on the deck of an aircraft carrier to celebrate the military victory in Iraq was the logical extension of CREEP's exploitation of the president's role as commander in chief. Moreover, the pervasive fear among Democrats that Bush might pull off some sort of "October surprise" in the war on terrorism -- such as the capture of Osama bin Laden -- is probably rooted in a tribal memory of the original "October surprise" -- Henry Kissinger's misleading announcement, less than two weeks before the 1972 elections, that "peace is at hand" in Vietnam. Targeting policies to key swing voter categories. From the very beginning, the Nixon re-election campaign was guided by the brilliant voter analysis of Kevin Phillips, an aide to CREEP Chairman John Mitchell and author of The Emerging Republican Majority. It focused heavily on tailoring presidential policies to the needs of key constituencies previously aligned with Democrats, such as conservative Southern Democrats. They were the most conspicuous targets of CREEP's attentions, as reflected in the administration's Southern-tilted Supreme Court nominees, its obsessive concern with protectionist measures for the Southern textile industry, and its loud opposition to "busing" strategies for school integration. But the Nixon strategy went much further, as the moderate Republican Ripon Society explained in its analysis of the 1972 elections: "Labor, blue-collars, ethnic groups, Catholics -- all these were, in [Nixon's] opinion, his moving targets." The same is true of Bush's 2004 campaign. The CREEP also paid a lot of attention to Hispanic voters, through appointments and Spanish-language advertising, just as Bush and the Republicans are doing today. As Karl Rove has hinted in a few Delphic utterances, Bush's domestic policies have been carefully targeted to key swing voter categories that previously leaned Democratic: No Child Left Behind is for married women with children; the Medicare prescription drug benefit is for seniors; the faith-based organizations initiative and bans on cloning research are for Catholics; and immigration reform (supplemented by high-level judicial appointments) is for Hispanics. Like Nixon, Bush expects to cut into the Democrats' Jewish vote with a conspicuous identification with an embattled Israeli government. And like Nixon, Bush plans to win culturally conservative voters with "wedge issues," including hardy perennials like abortion (which Nixon used) and guns, and new issues like gay marriage. Sacrificing fiscal and economic policy to electoral needs. Nixon produced not only the last balanced federal budget until President Clinton's, but the first abandonment of fiscal discipline as a keystone Republican policy. Rationalizing an election-year budget deficit, Nixon said: "What's a balanced budget worth in terms of votes? Fifty thousand votes in a national election, that's all." Bush, of course, has consummated the burial of deficit-hawk conservatism through policies that have quickly created the largest deficits in history, both short-term and long-term. More alarmingly, Bush has followed Nixon's determination to pump up the economy in an election year, whatever the long-term consequences. In Nixon's Economy, his 1998 book analyzing Nixon's policies, Rice University's Allen Matusow perfectly summarizes both presidents' approaches: "Nixon had no firm convictions on economic policy except that prosperity was essential for winning elections. ... Nixon brought in [Treasury Secretary] John Connally ... and together, these two shameless opportunists initiated the New Economic Policy, violating every tenet of the president's past belief but retrieving for him the Economic Issue before the 1972 campaign. By the president's calculus, the political benefits were worth the economic costs. Nixon's economic views, therefore, might be characterized by the phrase apres moi le deluge." And the deluge indeed arrived. As Matusow points out, the catastrophic aftereffects of Nixon's cynical policies included oil price shocks, "stagflation," recession, and a diminishing of the U.S. quality of life. "Bush's entire economic policy is, 'Cut taxes, raise spending, and screw the future,'" says University of Maryland political theorist William Galston. Bush has echoed Nixon's future-be-damned approach by packing the stimulative effect of his tax cuts into the months just before the 2004 elections, while extending the multitrillion dollar long-term cost well into the next two decades, just when the baby boom retirement will crash onto the economy. There's another parallel in federal spending policy. Nixon exploded entitlement spending by supporting a 20 percent jump in Social Security benefits that kicked in just before the 1972 elections. Bush has exploded entitlement spending with a Medicare prescription drug benefit whose real costs will vastly exceed the original estimates -- by at least $150 billion. Championing privilege while attacking cultural elites. Nixon in 1972 also pioneered a crude pay-for-play approach to fund raising among business groups. With CREEP's chief fund-raiser, Maurice Stans, as his personal link to the influence-hungry, Nixon was able to communicate to the wealthy that a nice contribution was the sine qua non of White House access, while maintaining arm's length deniability. As the Ripon Society put it: "By organizing 160,000 businessmen and encouraging them to reach out to their stockholders, CREEP created a powerful instrument and wealthy constituency." This foreshadows the Bush-G.O.P. "K Street strategy" that strong-arms the business community, not only to pony up large campaign contributions, but even to fire staff members with Democratic backgrounds. Also like the Bushies today, who have already made gay marriage a big cultural campaign issue, Nixon devoted considerable energy to the task of convincing middle-class Americans that liberal cultural elites were their real enemy. "Nixon had this conscious willingness to accept the abuse, the opposition, the criticism of the verbal leaders, this charge that he isn't sensitive enough. The louder they yell, the better it would be for him -- people are turned off by this leadership," so said key Nixon adviser Donald Rumsfeld, who was then also the mentor of a young Nixon aide named Dick Cheney. Once again, George W. Bush is refining a key CREEP strategy, combining the most blatant pay-for-play and pro-privilege policies since William McKinley with a powerful effort to distract middle-class Americans through attacks on cultural elites and identification with traditional values. Also like Nixon, Bush runs a White House obsessed with secrecy, insulated from press and public scrutiny, and determined to elevate politics over policy at every key turn. As striking as these parallels are, they do not mean the current incumbent can count on a re-election victory like Nixon's. Despite his campaign's strategy and tactics, Bush's poor record and broken promises will be hard for him to overcome. And besides, in 2004, Democrats are not running George McGovern. Ed Kilgore is policy director of the Democratic Leadership Council. Eben Gilfenbaum provided research assistance.