‘REASONABLE in manner.” Those words, taken from Thomas Jefferson’s letter on reconciliation after the tangled election of 1800, were at the heart of George W. Bush’s remarks last night. He has placed his hopes for a successful presidency on his ability to bring sweet reason to Washington after the nightmarish period that began on Jan. 17, 1998, when the world first heard of Monica Lewinsky, and continued unabated through the Florida horrors just past.
The president-elect is undoubtedly sincere in his belief that he can bring the same spirit of bipartisan cooperation to national politics that has guided his successful governorship in Texas. But Washington is not Austin. Texas Democrats are far more conservative than Washington Democrats, and Democratic state legislators have far less power than do Democrats in Congress.
And the ones in Congress have no interest in bipartisanship. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Most Washington Democrats are vociferously opposed to Bush’s sensible proposals for reforming education, Medicare and Social Security as a matter of principle. They have a starkly different world view. They believe that government must play a leading, guiding and controlling role in the lives of Americans – and that belief is grounded in deep and abiding conviction.
They will oppose him on these matters along partisan lines because most Democrats honestly believe Bush’s ideas are dangerous.
And as a matter of practical politics, bipartisanship is a recipe for Democratic disaster. Their hopes of reclaiming control of Congress in 2002 and the White House in 2004 depend upon Bush’s failure.
The nation will consider successful cooperation between the parties to be the result of Bush’s efforts and voters will reward him and his party for it, with parlous consequences for the Democrats.
Republican control of the White House, the Senate and the House will be extended if Bush does well, solidifying the piecemeal Republican surge of the 1980s in the White House and the congressional surge of the 1990s into a genuine and longstanding party realignment.
That would put the Democratic Party in the position held by the Republican Party in the five decades before Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy – as the potent but permanent minority.
They will not allow this to happen. If he is not yet aware of it, Bush must come to an understanding of just how high the stakes are for Democrats.
And one important aspect of his graceful and suprisingly powerful speech last night is that it lays the predicate for Bush and the Republicans to make this point explicitly when they face the voters at the polls in the next four years.
Bush has no choice but to work hard for bipartisan cooperation – so hard that, when his efforts are rejected, he can make a convincing case that the rejection is due to Democratic power-hungriness and an ideological commitment to government which causes them to look backward to a failed political past.
Invoking the “steady character” of America, President-elect Bush said: “Tonight I call upon that character: respect for each other, respect for our differences, generosity of spirit and a willingness to work hard and work together to solve any problem.” That’s a challenge he embraced last night.
And in so doing, he has posed a challenge to Democrats who do not believe in the nation’s “steady character” but rather in constant social change: Work with me as I attempt to work with you, or face the consequences of your intransigence. For that challenge to have teeth, he will at some point next year have to stop being a conciliator and start being a fighter.
E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com