Each presidential cycle is denounced as a new, groundbreaking descent into the hell where money and power meet. This one will break through the basement. But the irony is that the re-election game plan that Bush is following–both in terms of money grubbing and tactical positioning–derives directly from the play book written in 1995-‘96 by Bill Clinton.

The “coffees” are gone and so, thanks to the McCain-Feingold reform bill, is “soft money.” So, too, is Dick Morris, the political switch-hitter who gave rank maneuvering a blandly mathematical name, “triangulation.” But the basic strategic insights of Bush ‘04 are identical to Clinton ‘96:

Two wrongs don’t make a right, but, in politics, the first usually is a convenient excuse for the second. In 1996, Bill Clinton wrote scripts in the Oval Office for TV ads that would be paid for by allegedly independent “soft money” contributions. It was a clear violation of the intent, if not the letter, of the law. But with that money, the Democrats were able to launch an early, pre-emptive bombardment of GOP candidate Bob Dole and the Republican Party. After a string of primary battles, Dole locked up the nomination in March 1996. By late summer–even before he was officially anointed in San Diego–he was toast.

CLINTON’S 1996 MODEL

Clinton’s team in 1996 had a profound tactical insight, which was that presidential campaigns had become three-act plays. Before then, they had been two-part dramas, a primary season and a “general” election. But with each passing cycle, the primary season grows more compact. Now it picks a winner no later than the middle of March. That leaves a six-month middle act between the effective conclusion of the primary season and the post-Labor Day start of the fall finale.

As any screenwriter will tell you, the middle of the movie is the hardest part to write–and the most important to advancing the plot.

Visionary tacticians though they were, the Clintonites were live-off-the-land amateurs compared with the Bush crowd. This White House has transformed Ozark-style freelancing into an industry, with George W. Bush as chairman of the board and Karl Rove as the all-powerful CEO. Other key players are Mark Mehlman, the COO; Ed Gillespie, the new chair of the party (in charge of keeping the Republican insiders on board and in line) and Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition organizer in charge of turning out the evangelical base.

The aim is to raise $200 million. Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, said the other day with a straight face that his boss will need that much money to defend himself against Democratic attacks. No, the real reason is so that the GOP can fill the airwaves, cable channels and Internet with ads depicting the Democratic Party as a fetid nest of big-spending, tax-raising war wimps. Ditto, of course, for whomever they nominate. (By the way, if keeping a straight face were an Olympic sport, Fleischer would win the gold.)

Pre-emptive springtime aerial bombardment is only half the strategy. The other half is the Bush-Rove version of triangulation. Clinton made a virtue of necessity in 1995 and 1996. In the Newt Gingrich uprising of 1994, the Republicans had taken control of Congress.

But rather than fight them on all things, Clinton–prodded by Dick Morris–seemed to move to the right on several key issues, especially cultural ones. He signed a bill to “end welfare as we know it.” He pushed a plan to put more cops on the street. He made some minimally approving noises about voucher programs and testing of public school teachers. In other words, he took the edge off the GOP’s strongest line of attack among its own supporters, which was that the Clinton crowd was antagonistic to the Main Street cultural mainstream.

MIRROR IMAGE

Bush and Rove are attempting to do the same thing, in mirror image. The president has tried to snatch the HIV/AIDS issue from the Democrats, pushing–successfully–his own proposal to spend $15 billion on fighting the disease in Africa. The Bush Administration, eager to win a greater share of minority votes, has just promulgated a plan to end racial profiling as a tool of law enforcement–with the important exception of terrorism cases.

The granddaddy of triangulation moves is coming up: a deal with the Democrats to create a prescription drug benefit in Medicare. Conservatives are complaining that it would be the biggest, and potentially the most expensive, expansion of government in decades. They are probably right. Does Bush care? Probably about as much as Clinton did when liberals–remember them?–complained that if he did a welfare deal with the GOP he would wreck the lives of the poor. He did the deal and won re-election. Bush hopes to do the same.