Why can't democrats get tough? Bush's White House is partisan, imperial, and ruthless, but not invulnerable.

• Author: Glastris, Paul
• Position: Cover Story - Cover Story

ON Nov. 22, 2000, IT LOOKED as if the presidency of the United States was about to be decided in Miami, Fla. That morning, a three-judge canvassing board in Miami-Dade County resolved to recount 10,750 "undervotes"--ballots which machines had read as showing no vote for president, but which, examined by hand, might reveal such evidence of voter intent as the now-famous "dangling chads." Outraged operatives for George W. Bush, fearing that Al Gore might pick up enough votes to win, labored to convince the judges to stop the recount. When their legal arguments failed, they turned to a different form of persuasion.

As the judges repaired to a room to examine the votes, dozens of GOP "protesters" (mostly young Republican congressional aides flown in from Washington) gathered in the vestibule outside. Though two Republican observers were inside the room, and the "protesters" could watch the proceedings from afar through a window, they nevertheless convinced themselves that something nefarious was going on. The crowd started chanting "They're stealing the election," and "No justice, no peace!" They banged on the door of the tabulation room and physically harassed people coming in and out. After several hours of chaos, the judges relented. Citing a lack of time, they announced that they were stopping the Miami-Dade recount for good.

Right-wing pundits weren't troubled by the GOP's thuggishness. They were psyched. Wall Street Journal columnist (now editorial page editor) Paul Gigot praised the "bourgeois riot" as a sign that Republicans had finally learned to "fight like Democrats?"

Problem was, Democrats weren't fighting like Democrats. They staged no counter-demonstrations that day in Miami. Why? Because the vice president himself, fearing bad press, expressly ordered that unionists, civil rights activists, and other liberal ground troops should stay out of Florida.

The recount was a study in the starkly different political styles that characterize the two parties. To lead his recount effort, Gore chose Warren Christopher, widely admired for his rectitude and judiciousness. Bush chose James Baker, widely feared for his cold-blooded effectiveness. Christopher sent lawyers to Florida. Baker sent lawyers--and press people, and political surrogates, and operatives to stir up Cuban street protests. The Gore team called high-mindedly for an indeterminate process: We don't know who won, so count every vote. The Bush team sternly demanded a concrete result: We know who won, so stop the recount. When lawyers for Gore suggested slapping a subpoena on Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to prove she was taking orders from the Bush campaign (which she was) and therefore abusing her discretion, top Gore officials in Nashville overruled the plan as too incendiary. A month later, the Bush legal team publicly accused chief Gore aide Ron Klain of violating court orders by announcing the results of a partial recount--a charge the court summarily dismissed.

Why did Gore's side so consistently fail to act as ruthlessly as Bush's team in Florida? A big part of the reason, argues Jeffrey Toobin in his chronicle of the recount, Too Close to Call, was Gore's obsessive concern with how official Washington would respond. Gore "agonized about the views of the columnists, newspaper editorialists, and other elite opinion makers among whom he had lived so long," Toobin writes. "Gore cared as much about their approval as he did about winning, and he ran his recount effort accordingly." Bush, on the other hand, cared not a whit about what the "liberal media" had to say. Indeed, he knew, as the Gigot column showed, that the conservative media would support almost any tactic that put a Republican back in the White House. And so, while Gore kept his team on a leash, Bush gave his own carte blanche to do whatever it took to win.

The lessons of the recount might not matter much if Gore's hesitancy were a self-destructive trait peculiar to him. But it's not. It's a tendency widely shared among Democrats today. The Bush team can attack Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), lose $4 trillion of the surplus, and meet with campaign contributors whose company stock they own, and Democrats just watch. Sure, it's tough to fight a president wrapped in the glory of a so-far-successful war. But the Democrats' passivity long predates September 11. And then there's Enron. Is there any doubt that if the situation were reversed, Republicans would be exploiting the scandal more aggressively? Would they have hesitated, as Democrats have, to frame Enron as a political scandal, or to bombard the White House with subpoenas? Democrats can't afford to go all wobbly, especially now. Elections which could determine control of Congress are seven months away. Yet when it comes to playing political hardball, Republicans are hitting to all fields. Democrats are trembling at the plate.

Ruthless People

The Democrats have not always been so sensitive. John F. Kennedy exploited a non-existent "missile gap" to defeat Richard Nixon in 1960. Lyndon Johnson vaporized Barry Goldwater's presidential bid in 1964 with the help of an infamous TV commercial featuring a little gift and a nuclear mushroom cloud. Of course, these acts of...