Polling done for the Democratic leadership shows that voters are disbelieving when told about aspects of the GOP plan to revive the economy. Sixty-five percent oppose abolishing the corporate minimum tax, and are flabbergasted when they learn the plan passed by House Republicans would provide corporate tax rebates going back to 1986. “They think it’s a joke,” says Miller. Thirteen blue-chip companies would get more than $100 million each; IBM’s check alone would top $1.4 billion. Major energy companies with ties to the Bush administration would be among the bill’s biggest winners. Voters think corporations have rooms full of lawyers and accountants who do nothing but figure out ways to avoid paying Uncle Sam. Rolling back the corporate minimum tax strikes most voters as unnecessary largesse, especially in an era of declining revenues. Yet Democrats have not been able to capitalize on voter discontent with this GOP provision because most voters don’t know about it, and Democrats haven’t figured out how to break through the fog of war to clarify their message on domestic issues.
An unapologetic partisan, Miller argues that the president’s party talks a good game of unity, but hasn’t yielded any substantive ground. “They haven’t moved off their agenda for five minutes,” he says. “If these people were on ‘Jeopardy,’ every answer would be ’tax cut.’”
On taxes and energy exploration, Republicans have re-packaged their proposals and cast them as national-security measures. Democrats have been timid about directly criticizing anything the White House says is needed for the war effort. “Think of it like a ladder,” says a Democratic consultant. Before 9/11, President Bush’s popularity had dipped down close to his base, making him vulnerable to policy arguments made by the other side. After the attacks, Bush’s numbers soared to over ninety percent and are now hovering in the mid-to-high 80’s. Only a few rungs on that ladder don’t belong to Bush, and they are occupied by what this consultant uncharitably calls “the nuts,” Democratic diehards who won’t be swayed in their loyalty by anyone. The lesson? If you criticize Bush, do it very carefully.
The challenge for Democrats is to separate domestic issues from the war in Afghanistan. There is strong support for Bush and the war effort, but the administration’s domestic agenda is not supported by a majority of the American people. Before 9-11, polls showed that Americans viewed “individual responsibility” as the most important personal value. After the attacks, it became “community.” Confidence in government has tripled, and ninety-one percent of the public thinks government should help low-income people displaced by the terrorist attacks keep their health insurance. Subjected to the scrutiny it deserves, the plan advanced by the GOP would surely fail miserably in terms of public opinion. Even some administration figures have been critical. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill called the House GOP bill “show business,” signaling that it would be re-shaped and trimmed back in the Senate.
Yet it’s hard for Democrats to penetrate Bush’s public-relations offensive. The president captured the stage this week with sobering messages on the gathering threat of weapons of mass destruction. It’s hard in the context of life-and-death to get attention paid to a discussion on the corporate minimum tax, or the country’s growing economic woes. “People think it’s disloyal to say the country is not going in the right direction, or that the economy won’t get better,” says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. Yet the numbers tell another story. Slightly more than half the public (fifty-one percent) think they or a colleague is in danger of losing their job, and thirty percent say they know somebody already who has been laid off. Those numbers go way beyond actual unemployment levels, and speak to the anxiety people feel. If fear becomes a way of life, it dwarfs many of the issues Congress must deal with, and allows the White House and its allies on the Hill to prevail on legislation that might otherwise wither in the light of day.
THE GENDER BREAKDOWN
A staple of modern American politics, the gender gap, has all but disappeared in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Women support the use of ground troops in Afghanistan on the same levels as men, and their stand does not change in the face of inevitable casualties. When asked if their support for the war in Afghanistan would continue even if it meant cuts in spending for education and social-security, women stood firm at seventy-eight percent compared to seventy-nine percent for men, a gender equality on military matters that Lake says is unprecedented. The reason? The war in Afghanistan more than any recent previous conflict is seen as essential to combating terrorism, and keeping it from America’s shores. There is at least one difference in how the sexes view the situation. “Women are much more terrified than men,” says Lake. Asked if they or their families were likely to be affected by terrorism, only seventeen percent of men said yes while forty-one percent of women thought they were vulnerable to harm.
