For Bush, no cakewalk in Congress

THE DAY AFTER HIS reelection victory, George W. Bush was both relaxed and ebullient. "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it," he told reporters at a rare press conference. "When you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that's what I intend to tell the Congress."

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The president's good mood was understandable. He won reelection despite having an approval rating in the 49 percent range heading into Election Day, and with 56 percent of Americans believing the country was on the wrong track. He won the popular vote by 3.5 million votes, securing the first 50 percent-plus victory since 1988. And unlike in 2000, when his disputed victory was accompanied by GOP losses in Congress, the Republican Party gained seats in both houses of Congress, including an impressive four-seat gain in the Senate.

That Bush would react proactively and aggressively after winning a second term should surprise no one. He started his first term as a bold risk-taker, initiating major policy proposals as if he had won a landslide victory, while facing the most closely divided Congress in 70 years -- and he succeeded early on with both tax cuts and education reform. But even with thepopular vote win and the larger cushion in Congress, the sledding ahead will be very tough.

It starts with some of the endemic problems that plague every second-term president. A reelection victory is usually a vote for the status quo, not tumultuous change, and a second-term president's honeymoon is rarely long or intense. The window for major policy successes is short.

A second-term president is freed from the pressures and hassles of reelection politics, but he still needs to persuade lawmakers of both parties to fear him and take him seriously. And, of course, the battle for succession is already well underway by the time of his reelection. Many on the short list of potential successors -- such as senators Bill Frist, John McCain, and Chuck Hagel -- are party leaders the president needs to help implement his agenda, and inevitably his policy or political interests will clash with their need to boost support in the party's base or among groups of activists.

That ideological base is another headache that usually hits second-term presidents; after a successful reelection, the base sees no limit to its demands being met. Then there is the midterm election ahead. Congressional members of the president's party, knowing history, become increasingly nervous in that sixth year -- the term of art is the "six-year itch" -- since they are on the firing line, not him. So the president's hope of keeping his own party united behind tough-minded, politically risky and bold policy proposals dwindles, and the out party, desperate to regain some traction of its own, becomes increasingly tempted to find and exploit wedge issues for the elections ahead -- or to take advantage of a scandal to throw a president off his game.   Continued...