UNITED STATES: 'Second termism' may not constrain Bush

Analysis

The broad pattern of second term administrations since 1945 has been that they are considerably different in nature to those of the first term (especially the initial 18 months or so of that period). Several key features have tended to manifest themselves in these final terms of office:

1. Agenda exhaustion. By the beginning of the fifth year of an administration, a president has usually either succeeded in enacting his principal priorities (eg the Reagan economic agenda of 1981), or it has become obvious that his preferred policy outcomes will not be accepted by Congress (eg Clinton and healthcare reform from 1994). It is extremely difficult for presidents to acquire a 'second wind' for an additional substantive package of legislative measures. As a result, policy initiative -- if it exists at all -- tends to edge back to Capitol Hill, while the president increasingly looks to more ceremonial aspects of his position, not least to maintain or extend personal popularity.
2. Personnel exhaustion. Following a president's re-election, there is normally considerable turnover of personnel in the White House and the cabinet. It has, historically, proved hard to recruit figures of the same status as those they have succeeded. Those appointed tend to be more consensual, less inclined to impose a strong personal lead on their office, and more concerned with the process of bureaucratic management.
3. Congressional erosion. The general pattern is that the incumbent holds a weaker position in Congress at the outset of his fifth year and often much weaker by the beginning of the seventh. Thus Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, Richard Nixon in 1972 and Bill Clinton in 1996 were all re-elected alongside Congresses where both chambers were controlled by their partisan opponents. This weaker position has served as a further disincentive for re-elected presidents to pursue the same strategy as in their first term.
4. Foreign policy shift. Largely as a consequence of their weaker domestic position, second term presidents have tended to devote a larger proportion of their attention to foreign policy. For instance, after focusing heavily on domestic policy during the early phase of his presidency, Clinton spent much time on international affairs in his second term, driven largely by the Kosovo War.
5. Legacy factor. The desire of presidents to establish their own legacies tends to encourage them to look for grand foreign policy initiatives likely to command very high levels of public and elite approval. There has thus been a special emphasis on acquiring the mantle of peacemaker. The tone of Reagan in the conduct of superpower politics shifted markedly between his two terms (although this was due in part to the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev in the former Soviet Union). Similarly, Clinton devoted enormous resources to attempting to broker a landmark Middle East peace deal.
6. 'Lame duck' effect. As a president cannot seek more than two terms, political attention inevitably refocuses elsewhere, particularly towards the next presidential election campaign, during second terms. Once this happens, presidents become less consequential (but nonetheless remain very powerful) actors in Washington.
7. Scandal susceptibility. Second term presidencies have had a stronger association with serious scandal than first time term ones (although the events that trigger the eventual scandal often occur during first terms). Political scandal inconvenienced the Eisenhower administration, ended the Nixon one, badly damaged the Reagan White House in 1987, and led to Clinton being impeached in 1998.

Bush position. In a number of respects, Bush is in a different position to his post-war re-elected predecessors:

1. Agenda endures. Although he secured approval for many of his domestic political priorities through Congress during his first term, he has an agenda for his second term. This includes rendering permanent the tax cuts passed since 2001; part-privatisation of Social Security; tort reform; major energy legislation; and the approval of any Doha WTO agreement. On paper, this amounts to a more substantial domestic prospectus than Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton had at the same stage of their presidencies.
2. Congressional strength.Bush has not only been re-elected alongside Republican majorities in the House and Senate, but these have been enhanced after this month's elections. It is thus less likely that Bush will retreat into the more ceremonial aspects of his post as many of his predecessors have done.

3. Foreign policy forefront.Unlike other recent US presidents, foreign policy and national security was at the forefront of the first term of the Bush presidency. The September 11, 2001 attacks, the political response and the decision to intervene in Iraq have defined the Bush era. There is thus no need for a deliberate shift into foreign policy in the sense that previous administrations have undertaken.

   The degree to which foreign policy will remain at the fore in Bush's second term will probably depend most critically on whether there are any more major terrorist atrocities on the homeland; the extent to which al-Qaida is perceived as being progressively downgraded; the extent to which Iraq is pacified and becomes more stable; and whether any major foreign policy crises emerge in separate theatres.

Potential vulnerabilities. Given these relative strengths, a key issue is the extent to which other traditional areas of presidential weakness impact upon Bush's second term. These include: personnel exhaustion (almost bound to occur to at least some extent); the lame duck effect (unavoidable at some point); and scandal (very unpredictable). If the administration can avoid major scandal and does not become debilitated in other ways, including by the possibility of intensified problems in Iraq, the nature of Bush's second term may well be different to that of other post-war counterparts:

• Bush may be able to enjoy a long 'first term' that actually stretches through to the end of his sixth year in office in late 2006. This would be followed by a short 'second term' which is more like the standard set by Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton during their presidencies.
• In this scenario, the degree to which traditional second term constraints would be evident from 2007-09 would be influenced by the outcome of the 2006 congressional elections. However, even if they were highly favourable for Bush (with Republicans gaining seats in each chamber), the lame duck effect would still make it difficult for him to promote substantial legislation from 2007.