Bush's transformation of the GOP.

"A systematic effort by President Bush to enlist members of his party's conservative wing in the White House, and to champion touchstone conservative issues, has produced a unified base for him from this sometimes wayward faction of the Republican Party, conservative leaders say," reported the New York Times for June 30th. According to key GOP activist Grover Norquist, the contrast between George W. Bush and his father in terms of relations with social conservatives is "night and day.... Every group that this president has kept faith with, the previous president double-crossed."

But the relationship between Bush II and the social conservatives is a matter of image over substance. "By any measure," notes the Times, "Mr. Bush appears to have built up enough good will with his party's right wing to provide him significant latitude as he seeks to appeal to moderate voters by taking positions that might roil conservatives." That good will is a function of who Bush is not--specifically, Bill Clinton. As Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association notes, conservatives "can still taste eight years of Bill Clinton. They don't ever want to, go back to that."

Beltway conservatives are also flattered by the Bush II administration's apparent willingness to consult with them. "In the first Bush administration," observes David Keene of the American Conservative Union, "the conservatives were asked to be spectators.... In this one, they have a president who wants them to be part of the team." The Times points out that the administration sends a representative each week to Wednesday gatherings of conservative leaders assembled by Norquist. Additionally, senior administration political adviser Karl Rove and campaign manager Ken Mehlman "are now in regular contact with about 60 conservative leaders across the nation, discussing issues of concern to the White House and the re-election campaign."

But the White House is co-opting conservatives, rather than collaborating with them--a fact some conservative leaders are tardily coming to appreciate. George W. Bush's "fiscal record is appalling--spending is out of control," protests Edward H. Crane, president of the Cato Institute. "The fiscal record of the Bush administration makes Clinton look downright responsible." Incidentally, THE NEW AMERICAN made this same point nearly a year ago: In our September 9, 2002 cover story, we wrote: "Judging by current trends, Americans may someday view the Clinton presidency--shocking though it may seem--as an intermission of relative fiscal discipline between two big-spending presidents named Bush."

According to Norquist, the key White House liaison with the establishment Right, "The Republicans are looking at decades of dominance in the House and the Senate, and having the presidency with some regularity." Accordingly, even when President Bush embraces leftist positions on various issues, "There's a sense that we can afford to wait." But the tangible result of this approach is that the White House, having neutralized its most troublesome constituency, is now free to drag the Republican Party leftward.

"Historians will mark the administration of George W. Bush as the point at which the so-called social issues, long a galvanizing feature of American partisan politics, finally lost their sting" predicted Washington Times commentator Tod Lindberg in a July 1st column. "The Supreme Court's rulings upholding diversity as a compelling government interest and striking down the remaining state anti-sodomy laws join the early Bush administration decision allowing stem-cell research to go forward. The trinity (as it were) of decisions leave those whose top priority has been the preservation of a certain public morality now essentially voiceless in electoral politics. The Republican Party has moved on."