Domestic Impact: Bush's Republican Guard

By DAN GOODGAME

George Bush proved last week that he's not reluctant to press an advantage on the battlefield -- and the same is true in the domestic political arena. With Bush's public approval rating having soared to around 90% since he declared victory, his handlers are already working to sustain that support into 1992 and translate it into Republican gains across the board. Their battle plan calls for at least three aggressive thrusts:

-- Exploit the vote by most congressional Democrats against the war by contrasting the Democrats' "carping pessimism" with Republican can-do confidence in America's armed forces, industrial competitiveness, schools and future role in the world.

-- Encourage the swelling national mood of celebration and renewed optimism as an engine to pull the economy out of recession and eliminate the only potential obstacle to Bush's re-election.

-- Recruit potential new Republican candidates for Congress and other offices from among the 539,000 returning heroes of the war against Iraq.

The President is attempting to appear above the fray. In declaring military success, he stressed that this was "not a time to gloat." Yet even as Bush's victory address was being composed, his chief of staff, John Sununu, was meeting with the half a dozen top Republicans who help plot political strategy and are known informally as the Wednesday Group. The day after the speech, Sununu summoned Republican lawmakers to the White House to consider ways to link Bush's foreign success to his domestic policy.

In fact, Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had already begun that effort in little-reported passages of recent speeches. "We hear so often how our kids and our schools fall short, and I think it's about time that we took note of some of the success stories," Bush said on Feb. 15 in a speech to the Massachusetts workers who built the Patriot missile system. "For years we've heard that antimissile defense won't work . . . Some people called it impossible. But you called it your job. And they were wrong and you were right."

Two days earlier, Cheney had told a business group, "It's important to remember that virtually every one of these ((weapons)) programs and systems was targeted somewhere along the line in the early stage of its development by critics." He added that observing highly competent U.S. soldiers in the gulf had left him "less pessimistic about our basic educational systems." Summarizing the Administration's new line of attack, Cheney said, "We need to be less critical of ourselves than we have been . . . We have done a better job as a nation than we often give ourselves credit for, and the proof of that is what we're able to do over there in the gulf today."

By lashing out at naysayers, says Republican Party spokesman Charles Black, Administration officials are highlighting "some of the policies that we've supported and that are proving successful despite the opposition of the Democrats." Says party chief of staff Mary Matalin: "The Democrats are going to try to beat us on domestic policy, but they're so divided that they can't speak with one voice and put forward a coherent plan of their own. They'll end up just complaining, and I don't think people want to hear that right now."

G.O.P. strategists and pollsters have been impressed during the war by opinion surveys and focus groups that show strong public revulsion toward expressions of criticism or even skepticism by Democrats in Congress and by news reporters. "We're seeing a rejection of the cynicism that's been with us for so long," says Bush pollster and adviser Robert Teeter. "The most important thing that has occurred as a result of this war is a watershed change in the way the country thinks about itself."

Most Democrats in Congress voted against the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, but many say they did so only because they wished to give economic sanctions more time to work; once the resolution passed, they voiced clear support for U.S. troops. Republican spokesmen have made it clear, though, that they will not let the Democrats off the hook. Says former Drug Control Director William Bennett, who now serves informally as a G.O.P. adviser: "The votes for or against this war were important political acts, and they should have consequences."

Several Democratic Senators who opposed the force resolution have already seen their ratings drop as much as 17 points in state polls. And two potential presidential candidates, House majority leader Richard Gephardt and New York Governor Mario Cuomo, badly wounded themselves before the war started by suggesting, respectively, that Congress might cut off funds for the war and that Saddam might go away if given part of Kuwait. "The best part," cackled one White House official, "is that they did it on camera." Republicans have obtained copies of those tapes for use in campaign spots and might also rebroadcast Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz's thanking lawmakers who opposed President Bush.

Republican strategists doubt that the President's skyrocketing approval ratings will translate into clout with the Democrat-controlled Congress. Thus Bush will not squander his popularity in bold attacks on the country's myriad domestic problems. Instead, he will submit modest domestic proposals like last week's warmed-over housing and educational "opportunity" initiative, so that, in the words of one White House official, "nobody can say we don't have a domestic agenda." Still, Bush will try not to let the Democrats shift the national focus to social issues.

The President's only real domestic concern will be the economy, which Republicans hope will get a boost from increased consumer and investor confidence, lower oil prices and free-spending soldiers back from the gulf. Those returning G.I.s are also expected to offer a fertile new field for candidate recruitment, especially considering that retirement and redrawing of districts will result in 50 to 100 open seats in Congress by 1992. Says David Carney, a White House political operative: "It's a tremendous phenomenon that we haven't seen since World War II, where you have hundreds of thousands of soldiers returning as war heroes." Many of the reserve officers were prominent in their communities before the war and now have a valuable new credential. Though the Democrats may also try to woo returning soldiers, observes Republican pollster Linda DiVall, "we will have the upper hand because of the clear party division on this war and the President's popularity."

Party spokesman Black says that while some "research" on recruitment of soldier-statesmen "can and will be done by the Republican National Committee," there is no central plan to court potential candidates -- at least not yet. Most of the effort, he says, is concentrated in local party organizations, which know "who's over in the Persian Gulf who might make a good candidate."

One good prospect might be the unnamed U.S. officer who colorfully described his mission last week as "pursuit and exploitation" of fleeing enemy forces. For the Iraqis, that unhappy fate ended with a cease-fire. For the Democrats, it's just beginning.