Featured in Politics

Even As Bush's Second Term Starts, The '08 Race Lurks
With Cheney Ruling Out Run, Neither Major Party Has A Clear Heir Apparent For First Time In 50 Years

Elise Amendola

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush wave during President Bush's Inaugural Parade.
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published on 1/21/2005

Washington — For the past half-century, there has been a reliable political dynamic at every presidential inauguration. Someone on the platform — usually the president or the vice president — had already emerged as the party's likely candidate for an election that was still four years away.

Which is what made the scene outside the Capitol here on Thursday morning so unusual. For the first time since the inaugural of 1953, the president and vice president were at the stated end of their elective political careers.

At the same moment, Democrats, thoroughly out of power in Congress, are adrift in their search for a leader, much less a candidate for 2008, after a debilitating loss in November.

“If you go back and look, 2008 will be the first election in modern times when there is no heir apparent on either side,” said Matthew Dowd, who was a senior adviser to President Bush's presidential campaign. “It's amazing. It's a happenstance of history.”

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat who has been mentioned as a potential candidate for 2008, said: “You have a totally wide-open field with no leading candidate and no 800-pound gorillas on each side. You're seeing generation changes in both parties, and you're seeing totally new faces emerge.”

Even before Bush officially began his second term, that happenstance had produced an atmosphere of uncertainty that shadowed Thursday's festivities and is poised to influence politics and policy for the president and the Democrats. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who has forsworn another run in politics, had their morning. But they were surrounded by Democrats and Republicans who represent the face of a very crowded presidential race and are already maneuvering for advantage in what scholars described as the most wide-open election since before Dwight Eisenhower entered the race in 1952.

Bush could glance around him, as he waited to take the oath, and see not only the Republican Sens. Bill Frist of Tennessee and John McCain of Arizona, but also the Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and John Kerry of Massachusetts, just four of the many people who have signaled interest in running in 2008. Rudolph W. Giuliani fended off questions on CNN about whether he could see himself walking down Pennsylvania Avenue in 2009, while Kerry sent out an e-mail message on the eve of the inauguration announcing his opposition to the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state.

While this turn of events has repercussions for both parties, it has particularly strong implications for Bush and his party for the next four years. Bush and the Republican Party are sailing into the kind of choppy waters that are usually more commonly associated with Democrats, who by this point are quite accustomed to extended public battles over ideology and issues.

The extent to which Republicans whose thoughts have turned to the White House in 2008 support Bush's initiatives — particularly on issues like Social Security and immigration — will be critical not only to Bush's success in Congress, but also in determining his legacy, analysts and party officials say. And the vigor with which Republican candidates align themselves with Bush can be taken as an early verdict on the success of his second term.

In one notable moment a few hours before Bush was sworn in, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a potential Republican presidential candidate, said that while Social Security needed work, he did not consider it to be in crisis. Hagel seemed to be drawing a distinction with Bush, who in pushing for an overhaul of Social Security and has consistently portrayed it as in crisis.

Republicans argued that the party would survive, even thrive, in this period because Bush had been definitive in setting out a mission.

“You have a president that arguably has the boldest agenda of a recently elected president since 1937,” said Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, who was Bush's campaign manager. “Because of the nature of that president, because the president and members of Congress campaigned on that agenda, that is going to dominate what our party is thinking about and talking about and working for.”

Perhaps. But officials in both parties said that the next four years might be a lot easier if there was an heir apparent. Without an obvious heir, the ideological fissures in his party that Bush has managed to bridge so well could rupture, causing the kind of debates Republicans have avoided for nearly 30 years.

“I believe that ‘08 is going to be a mess for them, and Bush is going to be held accountable for them,” said Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic national chairman.

Not that Democrats are in much better shape. Asked to name the leading candidate in his own party, McAuliffe paused and said, “We're going to have a big open field.”

The celebrations across Washington served as a reminder of the difficulties McAuliffe's party faces. Kerry and Hillary Clinton were not seen after their obligatory appearance at the swearing-in. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who was Kerry's running mate, skipped all the events, spending the day at his Washington home.

While it may seem early for anyone to think about 2008, politicians on both sides have already begun making active and open preparations. In early February, Edwards is heading to a Democratic dinner in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's earliest primary.