Washington's new look POLITICS, THE 19th-century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck said, was the art of the possible. That may explain why the arch-conservative Bismarck created the modern world's first welfare state. It was not conviction that drove him to do it, but the recognition that if he did not do something to win the working class to capitalism's virtues, they would swell the ranks of the rising communist movement and smash the system. It is the type of political wisdom that US President George W. Bush and his friends in the Congressional Republican leadership would do well to ponder. The departure of Vermont Senator James Jeffords has certainly given Washington its biggest thrill in months. By reducing the Republican ranks to 49 in the 100-seat Senate, Mr. Jeffords, who will now sit as an independent, effectively delivered the house leadership into the hands of the Democrats. Democrats, needless to say, are jubilant. Not only will they be able to put the brakes on Mr. Bush's turn to the right, but they are in a good position to determine the political debate in a way that will favour them in next year's elections. Mr. Jeffords, a moderate Republican, claims that he did not leave the party, rather it left him. Created as the party of abolition during the Civil War, the Republicans have since the 1960s been moving more and more to the right. At one time, a healthy representation of north-eastern Republicans tempered the growing presence of Republicans from the south, since the north-easterners tended to be more liberal than their southern colleagues. But a curious thing has happened in American politics in recent decades. The south, once a bastion of conservative Democrats, has become Republican turf. Thus, the conservative influence in the Democratic Party has waned. Meanwhile, the Democrats have strengthened their representation in the north-east. The effect, argue some analysts, is that while the Democrats have lost most of their conservative wing, the Republicans are now in the process of losing what remains of their liberal wing. Yet as former President Bill Clinton recognised, it is not possible in today's America to build a governing coalition on the wings. After his party lost control of the Congress in 1994, he moved further to the right than the already conservative ground he had occupied, and managed to combine conservative policies with liberal rhetoric. Whatever its controversies, this strategy kept him in office, and also helped the Democratic Party to gradually reclaim some of the ground it had lost earlier in the decade. When George W. Bush came to office with what was probably the weakest possible mandate, he should have recognised the wisdom in this approach. Initially, his 'compassionate conservative' message seemed to mimic the Clintonian strategy of blending right-wing policies with soothing words and symbolic concessions. But the Bush White House, with its apparent contempt for public relations, forged ahead with an unabashedly conservative agenda. The White House and its Congressional and media allies are now saying that Mr. Jeffords' departure did not reflect a principled discontent with Republican conservatism. They insist Mr. Jeffords never expressed his unhappiness openly and was co-operating with the administration. Rather, they say, Mr. Jeffords had cast a wary eye on 98-year-old Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, whose health is failing and whose days look numbered. If Mr. Thurmond were to die before the next elections, control of the Senate would have gone to the Democrats anyhow. So Mr. Jeffords chose to bolt while the going was good, while he could still negotiate a sweet deal for himself as, admittedly, he has done. Even if such opportunistic motives played a part in his decision, though, it seems almost certain that ideological discontent with the Republican Party was a decisive factor. Besides, there are a few other Republican Senators echoing Mr. Jeffords' discontent. Their departure, if not likely, is still not out of the question. Significantly, there appear to be more discontented Republicans than unhappy Democrats in the Senate. The Bush White House would therefore do well to wake up and smell the coffee. Whatever they may want to do, it may not be politically possible. If the arch-conservative Bismarck could do a liberal two-step here and there, so too may Mr. Bush need to. John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Dept. of Government, UWI, Mona.
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