The Best Defense Is A Good Offense
Such is the old saying. And it is, for sure, the unofficial motto of the Bush administration; both on the campaign trail, and in The White House. Case in point:
Associated Press - April 9th, 2005 "While we came up just a little, teensy, itsy-bitsy short in Wisconsin, this victory would not have been possible had it not been for your efforts," said Rove, a White House deputy chief of staff who is credited with mapping out Bush's campaign victories in 2000 and 2004.
Rove said Kerry was forced to play defense in Wisconsin, visiting the state eight times in the last week of the campaign.
This is what they're all about: playing offense. President Bush lost Pennsylvania in November, but he did so by just over 2%; half of Gore's margin in 2000. Clinton won the state by 10 points over Dole, and 9 over Bush Sr. It's not a Democratic stronghold, but it wasn't supposed to be so heavily in play, either. But it was because Bush campaigned there heavily.
Bush lost the state, but not before turning it into a battleground, and therefore forcing his opponents to focus more attention there. This strategy was echoed in other states. The result is that the Democratic party was too busy protecting the blue states to start picking off the red ones. Take a look at the map; the red states were far redder than the blue states were blue.
This is almost perfectly mirrored in Bush's push to reform Social Security. Tom Maguire has postulated that perhaps Bush is on the offensive on Social Security not only to push for reform, but because it has allowed a number of other items on his agenda to find their way through Congress.
This is how Bush plays politics; he goes right after you, and while you're defending home base, he easily picks off the outposts, all the while forcing you to fight on his terms. That last part, you'll notice, also mirrors his foreign policy; "we will take the fight to the terrorists," "we will fight the terrorists overseas so we do not have to fight them at home."
I realize I am now in danger of stretching a casual observation into a Grand Unified Theory of George W. Bush, but it is becoming increasingly clear that his philosophy is largely based around putting his opponents, both domestic and foreign, on the defensive. It's also becoming increasingly clear that it's working.
» April 12th, 2005
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