Americans expecting President Bush to be swept by a landslide of support back into office don't understand the gravity of the past two months, one of politics' top observers and a former White House insider told a small Salt Lake audience Friday.
"Bush is not home free; for the first time Bush looks vulnerable," David Gergen, an adviser to four U.S. presidents, PBS television network political sentinel and now Harvard professor, told a group of Zions Bank high-asset clients gathered for a seminar at the Little America Hotel.
"The White House is not as disciplined as it was a few months ago," said Gergen, director of communications for Ronald Reagan and an adviser to Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton. "The wheels are coming off a little and the president is off-balance," Gergen said, noting that Bush's State of the Union address was flat and his recent one-on-one interview with journalist Tim Russert was flatter. People's trust in Bush, "his biggest asset, is suddenly in question."
Nevertheless, the odds are that the Republican president will defeat Sen. John Kerry, his probable Democratic challenger, Gergen said, noting that only three of 10 incumbents seeking re-election since 1944 were turned out (Ford, Carter and Bush's father).
"Kerry should be mincemeat for Republicans," Gergen said, noting that the senator is from the liberal Northeast, which has produced one electable presidential candidate in 60 years (John F. Kennedy). He is the "son" of Mike Dukakis," who ran a wildly unsuccessful presidential bid and who pundits called "Zorba the Clerk." But Kerry is more qualified than his predecessors and is tougher than a lot of people expected, Gergen said.
"The big question is once people get to know Kerry will they like him?" Gergen said, adding that "you could easily count on two hands and probably on one the number of friends he has in the Senate. People want a likable guy. Say what you want about George Bush, he's likable. People in Massachusetts have a great deal of respect for Kerry, but they're not warm about him."
Gergen said he expects both the economy and the war in Iraq to brighten over the next several months, which will aid Bush. "And if Osama bin Laden were captured in October, that would change the election overnight."
But there are "issues and sleeper issues" that will likely play bigger parts in the campaign, said Gergen, who between 1984 and 1993 was editor of U.S. News and World Report. The outsourcing of jobs is troubling to a lot of Americans, he said, noting that in the past week he had called Delta Air Lines about tickets and the person helping him was based in New Delhi, India. He also noted that another situation the United States has never faced before is countries, such as India and China, that are making high-technology strides but "are bigger than we are."
The shadow over what will no doubt be an election campaign of "grinding partisanship" is terrorism, he said, adding that "we are lucky and I'm surprised that we haven't had a suicide bomber yet."
He said Bush should have waited a few months and garnered U.N. support before invading Iraq, which he called "a mess." He also said the administration didn't lie about Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities but it didn't do what it could to dissuade the notion from taking hold with the public — himself included — that Saddam was directly involved in the World Trade Center attacks.
Gergen also said that the current period of rampant deficit spending will be viewed in years to come as "a serious error in our financial policy."
"People haven't been asked to sacrifice or pay more taxes to pay for this war. No wonder people look at it like a spectator sport."
He criticized Bush's treatment of the environment and not promoting conservation, but at the same time said much of the trouble the country faces is a result of having to keep using "the Saudi filling station."
E-mail: jthalman@desnews.com