The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008

Bush's son, when he took the podium, emphasized not Clinton's smooth Southern moves but his steely, unshakable strength. "The president is not the kind to give up a fight," his successor said. "His staffers were known to say, 'If Clinton were the Titanic, the iceberg would sink.' "

These were gracious nods to an old adversary, but the forty-first and forty-third presidents were indulging in a common tendency to view Bill Clinton's successes through the prism of his mystique, as though he had superhuman political powers and resolve. Again, it is our aim to dispense with the Clinton mystique and focus instead on the Clinton method -- techniques devised through practice that includes errors and defeats as well as victories.

On this particular occasion it was easy for George W. Bush to be gracious. Just two weeks earlier, he had denied conventional wisdom in securing reelection, winning by a narrow percentage but with the largest number of votes for any presidential candidate in history. In so doing, he had thrilled his ardent supporters, surprised the national press corps, and confounded the thousands of Democrats sitting under umbrellas in Little Rock. The Democrats' candidate, John Kerry, had lost to a man most of them regarded as incompetent and immoral, defending a record they considered transparently appalling. The crowd was chastened by the defeat, but hardly more comprehending of why Bush had proved so formidable an opponent. Bill Clinton, however, professed an early insight into Bush's success. In his remarks at the library, he recalled a night in 1999 when he sat up late in front of the television and first saw Texas governor George W. Bush on the stump in Iowa: "I called a friend of mine and said, 'My God, that guy can beat us. He is a good politician.' " There is no higher praise that Bill Clinton knows how to offer.

Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. The dynastic pattern of recent politics perhaps has grown too familiar for people to appreciate what a striking historical fact it represents. When the current President Bush completes his full second term, it will be the first time since James Madison and James Monroe almost two hundred years ago that back-to-back presidents both served all eight years of two elected terms. Put another way, two of the most divisive figures in this country's history will have commanded the White House for sixteen consecutive years. Hillary Clinton could extend this record, as someday could George W. Bush's younger brother Jeb, whose achievements as Florida's governor and own acute ambition make him a potent potential presidential contender.

These families are the era's preeminent politicians because they are preeminent political innovators. Much of what they know about politics they have learned from watching one another and reacting accordingly. They have self-consciously emulated the other side's accomplishments, and maneuvered to avoid their pitfalls.

The first President Bush certainly is part of this chain. But he is from a bygone era no longer relevant, or increasingly even recognizable, to our own. Even George W. Bush and Karl Rove, and perhaps George H. W. Bush himself, would agree that to the extent the elder Bush's career offers any lessons for candidates running in 2008, they are mostly in the negative: what not to do.

For her part, Hillary Clinton has had her eye trained on the current President Bush for six years. While she would run for president in 2008 trying to repudiate his policies, she and her team have studied Bush's success in several areas: maximizing the power of the executive branch; maintaining discipline in party ranks; and, especially, attempting to keep the national news media and Washington political Establishment at her heel rather than at her throat.

While the Bushes and Clintons have borrowed from each other, this filching is mainly in the realm of tactics. Their strategic assumptions about how to win and govern in divided America are quite different and over time have developed such distinct forms that there are now two leading brands in American presidential elections: Bush Politics and Clinton Politics. The two brands revolve around different answers to two questions. Why are the American people so choleric and divided? And what should a politician try to do about it?

Clinton Politics is the politics of the center. It holds that Americans for the most part, with the exception of irate groups at the edges, are less interested in ideology than in practical solutions to basic problems. People would prefer for politics to be polite, civil, and compromise-minded. And they would get their wish, Clinton maintained, were it not for the cynical maneuverings of interest groups and operatives who deliberately contrive to invent and exaggerate con¿icts and make people frustrated and distrustful. The goal of Clinton Politics is not to clarify differences but to blur and ultimately bridge them. The great weapon of Clinton Politics is presidential approval ratings. Clinton's notion was that a president with a 50 percent approval rating or lower is living dangerously. A president with a 65 percent approval rating has enough clout that no adversary can lay a glove on him. But Clinton's critics -- a group that very much includes Bush and Rove -- suggest that this approach to politics produces "small-ball" policies that squander the true power of the office.

Bush Politics is the politics of the base. It holds that people are angry in the main because the issues and values dividing Americans are real and consequential. A successful leader will stand forthrightly on one side of a grand argument. Then he or she will win that argument by sharpening the differences and rallying his most intense supporters to his side. A president who wins by one vote -- or even by five Supreme Court votes -- has all the power he needs to make history. As president, Bush has not won every fight, and he has on occasion sought bipartisan legislative consensus, but his presidency primarily has used the energies and passions of conservatives to change the country, often well ahead of public opinion.

Karl Rove is the chief author and chief implementer of Bush Politics. At this moment, the legacy of Bush Politics is very much unsettled, as is Rove's reputation.

What is undeniable, despite recent setbacks, is that Bush and Rove together built a strategy that -- from 1999 to 2004 -- produced a nearly unbroken string of political successes. Democrats and journalists trying to understand the future of politics ignore this accomplishment at their peril.