Bush Looks Rightward

By John F. Dickerson

Any pretense that President Bush isn't thinking about politics was ended last week when he launched a robust schedule of campaigning for G.O.P. candidates. In New York City the President attended two fund raisers for New York Governor George Pataki and met privately with Edward Cardinal Egan, fostering ties to the Roman Catholic community that Bush's advisers believe are crucial to his political success. But more quietly, Bush has been bolstering his credentials with social-conservative Republicans, who are even more crucial in this off-year election, in which only the most faithful turn out to vote. In his budget proposal, Bush called for a 33% increase in spending for abstinence education. He allotted $100 million to seek ways to encourage marriage and two-parent families. Bush's Secretary of Health and Human Services made good on a promise to treat fetuses as children, granting them (and their mothers) eligibility for government-funded health care. That delighted pro-life advocates, as did Justice's backing of an Ohio effort to revive a state law forbidding so-called partial-birth abortion. Handing out plums to the right is meant to galvanize conservative voters so the G.O.P. can regain control of the Senate (and retain the House), and thus give Bush a major boost on the way to the '04 election.

--By John F. Dickerson