By Munir K. Nasser
Chief Correspondent, Washington, DC
Albawaba.com
George Bush's first task as president-elect will be to bring the country together. He will obviously talk about common American values and goals as he seeks to rally the public behind his new administration. But his most daunting task will be to put together a cabinet that shows he is both principled and reasonable.
But even his likely selections of two African Americans, Colin Powell for secretary of state and Condoleezza Rice for national security adviser, is not likely to soothe black Americans. That community went 90 percent for Gore according to exit polls, and observers of the African-American community say that Powell is more likely to hurt his own reputation among blacks than he is to improve Bush's standing.
Washington analysts believe, however, Bush’s success in the White House will depend largely on the US economy's health. If the economy continues to show growth and Americans remain satisfied, Bush has a chance to survive mid-term elections for Congress in 2002. To succeed, Bush needs to remember that he promised to bring a new style and tone to Washington. He'll need to reach out to Democrats in Washington, and he'll need to offer new solutions to old problems.
Democrats in Congress are not likely to give Bush a break, unless he can convince them that he will deal with them in a fair way. If his poll results drop or the economy weakens, he will face difficulty. Observers believe the Washington atmosphere is so bitter that Bush will not be expected to succeed.
Both Al Gore and George Bush believe they won this election, but Gore accepted the verdict from the Supreme Court and so will his supporters. But in the back of their heads there will always be the questions about the results and whether a full recount would have been in Gore’s favor. This has left a sense of bitterness from members of both parties. The bitterness will be reflected in the new Congress, where both parties will try to engage in legislation, in a Senate that is 50-50 and in a House that is controlled by Republicans.
Observers believe there will be a short honeymoon between Bush and the Congress.
The Democrats will look ahead to 2002 and the mid-term election of a Republican president who lost the popular vote, barely won the Electoral College, and believe they can win both houses of Congress.
Many Democrats expect Al Gore to be an enormously positive force for their party. They believe he can, in effect, be a shadow president, a de facto president, trying to establish himself as the potential nominee in the year 2004.
Gore is not expected to have a free ride to the 2004 nomination within the Democratic Party, but the way he conducts himself during the final days of the Clinton administration will give him huge opportunity if he chooses to run again.
On foreign affairs, Washington analysts expressed concern that the legal battles between Gore and Bush have eroded the credibility of the US presidency in the world. They fear that the new president will struggle to assert his authority domestically, let alone on the international scene. Few world leaders have even met the Governor of Texas and many of them would have preferred dealing with Al Gore because they knew the vice president personally, they respected his knowledge of international affairs and they liked the idea of continuity. Now they will have to deal with Bush, a man who has hardly ever traveled outside his own country.
Another reason for alarm in foreign capitals is that Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s expected national security adviser, suggested during the campaign that a Bush administration would pull back US troops from worldwide peace-keeping duties. She suggested US troops might be pulled back from Bosnia and Kosovo, leaving Europe to take over more of their duties in the Balkans.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
