The ban on Partial Birth Abortions was most certainly taking the fight directly to the Democrats, as was demanding that the Senate vote on war with Iraq back in November, and as has been nominating Bill Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
But besides the full frontal assault, Bush is also enganging in the oblique attack. Oh, we're killing Kyoto, he says, but we'll put up another plan for that sort of thing...one day...after several studies have been done.
Oh, and that prescription drug bill, well, you see we need to be able to privatize all of Medicare one day guys, Bush says.
That Education Bill?! "Surely if we give you Democrats all of this Educational money, you won't mind if we actually test the teachers, insure that the kids can read, and close down the really bad inner city schools that have essentially failed our kids," Bush notes. And so obliquely, Bush gains what would not have passed had he taken the Democrats on headfirst with that issue. Heck, even Ted Kennedy signed on to it! Such is a thing of beauty, and criticizing this sort of indirect win is like criticizing Washington's victory at Yorktown.
In fact, what Bush has done is to win an enormous number of Conservative victories (e.g. killing the ABM treaty, killing Kyoto, two tax cuts, military pay raises, partial birth abortion ban forthcoming, etc.), all without the press conceding that Bush is a one-man juggernaut.
Yes, the Democrats are ripe to be broken, but you don't break them with political brute force; that would actually cause them to set aside their differences and rally together.
Instead, you beat them by turning one against the other. Lieberman and Dean are critizing each other over their Iraqi War stances, for instance. Black Democrat "leaders" are asking why there are no Blacks in DNC leadership positions, especially compared to the high-level appointments being made in the Bush administration. Further, Black inner-city parents want school choice vouchers, while the Democratic-leaning teachers unions are dead set against them. Unions are wanting the jobs that come with drilling in the ANWR, and they are fighting against the Democratic Party enviro-nazis who want no such thing at all.
And then there is the money. Bush can easily raise millions; in contrast, the Democrats have to scrape and hustle for every buck. Moreover, the timing is favorable for Republicans. The Democrats have more vulnerable Senate seats up for re-election in 2004, plus the nationwide redistricting strongly favors the Republicans expanding their lead in the House. And the Democrats went into hock in the 2002 elections, doing really dumb things such as getting one Florida teachers' union to mortgage its headquarters building for $1.8 million to buy 30 seconds worth of pro-Democratic TV time.
Nor will it benefit Democrats financially to have to pay for Gray Davis and perhaps even another national Democrat to run in the 2003 recall election in California.
And on top of all of that, McAuliffe squandered the money that was supposed to be spent building the great DNC donor database, as well as wasted precisou DNC funds on teh DNC headquarters building.
So why give the Democrats an excuse to circle their wagons? Why take them on headfirst at every chance to force them to put aside their own internal differences?
Surely it makes more political sense to keep taking the oblique, non-direct high ground, blissfully letting the Democrats continue their fratricide.
