Unlike in 2000, Bush no longer needs Powell to burnish image

WASHINGTON – Rep. Henry Hyde, the durable Illinois Republican, mindful of the fickle ways of… WASHINGTON – Rep. Henry Hyde, the durable Illinois Republican, mindful of the fickle ways of Washington, is fond of saying that the nature of power and high office here can be likened to Christmas help at a department store.

Which is to say that it is temporary and readily replaceable.

While that is often the case for elected officials, it is truer still for Cabinet secretaries and others who “serve at the pleasure of the president,” even those with the star power of Colin Powell.

When President-elect Bush announced Powell’s appointment in December of 2000, the move was almost universally cheered because of the retired general’s outsize persona and the bipartisan nature of his appeal. He was the embodiment of Bush’s “I’m a uniter, not a divider” campaign slogan. Bush needed to trade on Powell’s image to burnish his own.

A decided moderate in a Republican Party dominated by conservatives, Powell represented to some a hope that Bush would try to govern from the dynamic center, especially after such a contested election.

Powell’s selection, like that of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, also signaled a willingness by the president to surround himself with strong people, even some who might be willing to challenge him.

Bush no longer has those kinds of concerns.

As he begins his second term, the ritual of Cabinet departures is playing out, and who the president chooses as successors will go a long way toward determining whether he is looking more toward a personal legacy or semi-permanent political majority for the Republicans. Or, more boldly, both.

One thing is certain: Bush is consolidating power. The first indication came when he announced that White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, a Bush loyalist from Texas, would replace John Ashcroft as attorney general. Gonzales comes from the staff ranks, and, unlike a former governor or senator, has no independent power base, making him even more beholden to the president.

It is a long pull from the days of his budding administration when Bush needed Powell to burnish his own credentials. While the president’s popularity has swung up and down dramatically, Powell’s had been steady, and most often greater than the president’s.

“He’s the most popular member of the Cabinet with the American people and the most popular member of the Cabinet abroad,” said Lee Hamilton, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center. “The major impact of Powell’s leaving is that he has been the person that foreign governments have looked to for support in their appeals to the Bush administration. He’s a prominent internationalist.”

But his was often a lonely voice in the Administration on matters of war and diplomacy, and his departure probably says as much about Bush as it does about Powell.

The early talk about a replacement for Powell focused on national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who like Gonzales has long-standing personal ties to the Bush family. And a candidate to replace outgoing Education Secretary Rod Paige is Margaret Spellings, who also came to Washington from Texas.

A second term can be liberating and it also can be confining. Within the administration it can be much easier to get things done relying on staff, even if the president has elevated them to Cabinet rank.

“What we’ve got in these two most significant departures – Powell and Ashcroft – are two different ends of the spectrum in terms of ideology,” said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas who has studied Bush’s style since he was governor.

“When he was a new president, a relative rookie like Bush was looking for high-profile people with an independent basis of support. In a second term he is free to get people comfortable with and loyal to him and ones who will not present problems for him in terms of confirmation. He is no longer trying to send messages.”

He doesn’t have to. With stronger majorities in Congress and lower-echelon types ascending to Cabinet level, the president is left in an even stronger position, lame-duck status notwithstanding. And, as he recently said, he believes he earned political capital with his re-election victory and he intends to spend it.

Second terms are always a time to rearrange the Cabinet chairs and, as important in many ways, the sub-Cabinet jobs where policy is truly hammered out. And how those lower-level bureaucrats function could say more about how Bush wishes to reshape the role of the government perhaps even than their bosses.

The first year of a second term is arguably the most critical, when Bush is most likely to be able to hold sway in his own party before some begin their own run to replace the president in 2008.

“They can put out nice front people, but it’s at the sub-Cabinet level where all the religious conservatives and Jesse Helms type isolationists will be,” said one Republican senate staffer. “The message Bush is sending consists of `I’m in charge. This is my government now. I don’t have to send a message of reaching out.'”

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(c) 2004, Chicago Tribune.

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