In the 1990s, citizens sent Washington a message by giving one party the Congress and the other the presidency -- intensified checks and balances two centuries after the founders thought of the idea. The voters didn't quite trust either party to govern without the restraint of the other.
This decade could be a variation on the last one. The voters support Bush on his basic anti-terrorism campaign but are skeptical of some of the military adventurism on the horizon. They like his economic program, especially when he borrows basically Democratic themes like more secure health insurance and better-paying jobs. So despite Bush's huge popularity in the wake of Sept. 11, this could be another decade of partisan cohabitation. On the foreign front, Bush's saber-rattling at Iraq may or may not be unnerving Saddam Hussein, but it is giving pause to our allies and spine to the domestic opposition.
Vice President Dick Cheney's Mideast mission to enlist the tacit consent of friendly Arab states for an Iraq expedition quickly shifted to a more urgent question: a new peace initiative for Israel and Palestine. Even in London, where Prime Minister Tony Blair has been Bush's most loyal ally, 100 Labor members of Parliament have petitioned their chief urging him to resist any war with Iraq.
At home, Democrats who shared the public outrage at the Sept. 11 attacks and strongly supported the limited Afghan war are now questioning Bush's plans for the next phase. A campaign against Iraq that failed, left a messy aftermath, incurred serious American casualties, or isolated America from its allies could dramatically change the national psychology of broad support for the president. And all of these outcomes are more likely than a costless toppling of Saddam.
Since Sept. 11, Americans have generally suspended their reservations about Bush. But every president since Truman has had to rein in the most extremist elements in his own camp. President Truman had to fire General Douglas MacArthur. President Kennedy had to resist General Curtis LeMay, who wanted, famously, to nuke North Vietnam "back to the Stone Age." Even LBJ ultimately denied his generals another half a million American troops for Vietnam.
Bush's ultras are civilians -- people like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and grand hawk Richard Perle, who have been spoiling for a war with Saddam. But many of us who supported the military action in Afghanistan now wonder whether Bush has what it takes to resist people who could literally start World War III. These misgivings could spread.
The economy, seemingly, is good news for President Bush. But here, too, there are parallels with George Bush the First. During his only term, the economy went into recovery late in 1991, but in November 1992, it didn't feel like much of a recovery to a lot of voters.
Unemployment stayed just high enough to create a lot of job insecurity and keep people from getting raises. Other worries, such as unease about health insurance, gave the Democrats a set of pocketbook issues sufficient to oust the first President Bush, supposed recovery or no.
This economy has much in common with that one. Unemployment is just high enough to keep labor markets soft. Worries about health coverage are, if anything, much more severe than in 1992. Constituencies that tilt Democratic, like seniors, wage workers, public employees, working women, and minorities, don't feel as if their personal economies are in recovery.
Of course, the Democrats would have to offer something to these voters. And here, the Democrats' own divisions are probably more disabling than the supposed invincibility of the president.
Yet, despite the president's overwhelming (and bipartisan) public support on the basic anti-terror campaign, the Democrats have intermittently functioned as an effective opposition party on other issues without suffering voter retribution. They surprised themselves by blocking the elevation of a dubious judicial appointee, Charles Pickering.
They managed to win the two governorships in contention last November, in Virginia and New Jersey, just two months after Sept. 11, based largely on local issues. And California Democratic Governor Gray Davis, with a sly campaign, recently knocked out Richard Riordan, Bush's handpicked challenger to Davis in the Republican primary.
The voters, I suspect, are more adept at compartmentalization that the pundits often give them credit for. In the current case, that means the ability to distinguish economic from national security issues, general economic recovery from personal recovery, and even the righteous response to Sept. 11 from dangerous foreign military adventures.
