Word: antitaxers
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...wife Shelley has a role limited to "taking care of the man running for office," Bay's presence looms large. She is largely responsible for the seat-of-the-pants strategy that complements her brother's smooth stump manner and plays to his strengths. She helped create the effective antitax TV spot that parodied Bush's "read my lips" pledge on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. And it was Bay who advised Pat to pillory the President for < delaying the $500 middle-class tax cut he had promised in the State of the Union address...
...what really gives Bush the creeps is the dark portents California holds for the future of the Republican Party. The whirlwind that the G.O.P. sowed nationally with its antitax campaigns -- and its neglect of highways, schools and other public services -- has touched down in California, battering Wilson and tearing the state G.O.P. apart. The antitax revolt that was started by California Republicans and culminated in Bush's "read my lips" campaign of 1988 has hardened voters so indiscriminately against taxes that those same Republicans can't govern after they're elected. Trapped in their own antitax rhetoric, they find that...
Elsewhere the message was mixed, but dissatisfaction with the status quo was the unifying theme. In Mississippi, Texas, New Jersey and Virginia, incumbents were washed out of office by a wave of antitax, antirecession, antigovernment sentiment. Though both parties posted gains as well as losses, the results reflected a sour, throw-the-bums-out mood that threatened officeholders everywhere. Only Washington State seemed to buck that trend by turning down a ballot initiative that would have imposed strict term limits on the state's congressional delegation. But milder term-limitation measures applying to local officials were approved in Houston...
...politics aside, an activist like Clinton would be better placed than a conservative to push the "responsibilities" agenda. Most Republicans see government as "the problem"; their views are "trapped by their antitax and antigovernment rhetoric," says Conner. "When they talk about rights and responsibilities, the red flags go up. People see them as being demanding without being supportive, as wanting to take without being willing to give." On the flip side, adds Conner, in an analysis Clinton shares, "liberals are going to have to realize that the only way to generate public support for expanding the programs they see people...
Though the right-wing ideologues are not yet strong enough to destroy the Bush presidency, they are capable of inflicting political damage. Phillips and other conservatives, encouraged by the election of independent Walter Hickel as Governor of Alaska on an antitax platform last month, are organizing what they call the U.S. Taxpayers Party. Phillips concedes that the party lacks a "rallying point" so far. But the incipient revolt could drain off crucial Bush votes...