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No
Respect Some of the great mistakes political parties make are ones they cannot help making. Republicans can’t help themselves from bashing “union bosses,” although hostility to them does not bring many voters to the polls; they and everyone they know dislike unions so much that they assume it’s an effective tactic. Democrats, similarly, attack Republicans for being pro-life and pro-gun, although there is a fair amount of evidence that those issues mobilize conservatives more than they do liberals. They can’t help themselves; it’s who they are. The Democrats may be making another mistake: not taking George W. Bush seriously enough. In their attacks on him, they positively drip with disdain. And this disdain is not merely feigned, the better to persuade voters that Bush is a numbskull; it’s more visceral than that. I’ve heard a number of Democratic strategists, both in public and in private, say that Bush is a lightweight, a punk, a little nothing, and that as soon as voters size him up he’ll tumble. Liberal journalists, too, are dismissive of Bush. The New Republic began a recent editorial thus: “George W. Bush has an idea about American nuclear strategy. His idea has exceedingly little merit. . .” It continues in this vein: “The plan was that the governor’s proximity to Henry Kissinger would confer upon him the appearance of reflection. The plan failed. . . . He looked and sounded small.” The New Republic, meanwhile, sounds both ponderous and bitchy. It’s not a politically appealing timbre. Voters might be persuaded that Bush’s nuclear plan is a bad idea, but they are not going to be persuaded that it’s smoke and mirrors—now when it has the backing of Kissinger and Colin Powell. Nor are they going to follow Gore in concluding from Bush’s ideas on taxes and Social Security that he doesn’t have the maturity to be president. Insouciant Bush may be, but dumb he isn’t. All Bush has to do to overcome this particular Democratic strategy is to keep his cool under fire. If it helps, he might recall that they didn’t respect Ronald Reagan, either.
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