Bush Agenda On The Line
After a week of full-throttle campaigning and a year of aggressively promoting the GOP, there was nothing left for President Bush to do Election Day but cast his own ballot, urge Americans to the polls and hope he defies history.
It took the president only a few minutes to mark his ballot at the local firehouse that is serving as an election precinct near his ranch, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller. Mr. Bush got to vote for 45 state and local offices including governor, U.S. Senator, county clerk, and even constable. Mr. Bush would not discuss his hopes for the election, only that he hopes all Americans get out to vote.
Asked about the Republican Party's prospects in the make-or-break elections, Mr. Bush seemed to signal they could go either way, flashing a thumbs-up - but turning it to the side, too.
Presidential prestige is at stake and, taking the long view, a big part of George W. Bush's re-election hopes are on the line, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Peter Maer. He invested heavy personal and political capital campaigning for congressional candidates who could advance his agenda and Republican gubernatorial candidates who will run their state parties heading into the 2004 presidential election.
The White House is seeking political cover for any setbacks in races where the president campaigned the hardest. Officials say a lot of local issues can influence the outcome. But the President has, in effect, made himself an issue with repeated stops for Republicans in the toughest battles. His aides know that many of the races will be seen as a test of the president's policies and political influence.
Still, "the president is heartened by the fact that he appears likely to have broken the historical trend against incumbents in their first terms," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "That is a very serious, significant development."
The president seemed relaxed in jeans and a leather jacket when he voted. Wife at his side, Mr. Bush said he was also celebrating their 25th anniversary Tuesday with Laura Mr. Bush - but wouldn't say what gift he'd bought for her birthday a day earlier.
It was a low-key finale to a furious White House effort on behalf of Republicans this year.
The president's party generally loses ground in midterm elections. If that holds true Tuesday, it won't be for lack of effort by Mr. Bush.
His bid opened Jan. 9 with a fund-raiser for his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and by the time he voted Tuesday, Mr. Bush had waged a political effort that was unrelenting in its pace, unheard-of in its scope and unprecedented in its fund-raising success.
After that opening fund-raiser for his brother, Mr. Bush never took more than a couple of weeks off from the money trail. He raked in more than $140 million in 67 fund-raisers, obliterating records set by former President Clinton.
Vice President Dick Cheney set new records too, vacuuming up more than $40 million in 70-plus fund-raisers.
The White House injected itself into the elections at every opportunity, breaking with convention by selecting candidates it thought had the best shot of winning long before Republican voters had a chance to vote in primaries.
Sometimes the tactic backfired: California Republicans rejected former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, the White House pick, in favor of political novice Bill Simon in the gubernatorial primary.
Mr. Bush used the power of the presidency to maximum political advantage, putting untold thousands of miles on Air Force One. His final push was a five-day, 17-city blitz leading up to Election Day, a blur of rallies in airplane hangars and convention centers, repeating a standard stump speech that almost never varied but that fired up the faithful.
Almost all members of his Cabinet fanned out across the nation to promote the GOP cause, as did other luminaries of the bureaucracy, like the normally nonpolitical chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
And a CBS News/New York Times poll released Saturday indicates the president's efforts were having an impact. The survey shows Mr. Bush's influence being felt by about half of registered voters, a higher than usual number. Forty percent of the registered voters surveyed say he will not be a factor in their vote.
Mr. Bush's impact will be more positive than negative — 31 percent say theirs will be a vote for him, and 19 percent say it will be a vote against him.
Mr. Bush came into office promising to "change the tone" in Washington, but his campaign message was harshly critical of the Democratic-run Senate: It had done a "lousy" job in approving his judges, for example.
Indeed, the future of Mr. Bush's agenda was at stake Tuesday, because a GOP-controlled Senate presumably would approve his blueprint for a new Department of Homeland Security, an energy package, a terrorism insurance proposal and more.