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Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

5/30/2003

An Unparalleled Act of Political Brilliance
Dick Morris says that President Bush's political strategery on the tax cuts was nothing short of brilliant, and puts every Democrat in a political box in 2004.

President Bush, in an unparalleled act of political brilliance, has managed to figure out how to have his cake and eat it too: Pocket the accomplishment of a tax cut, while preserving it as an issue for the next election. He did it by letting himself be "defeated" in his demand for a $750 billion tax cut stretching over the next 10 years. Instead, he accepted what appeared to be less than half a loaf, agreeing to a $320 billion cut that sunsets in 2006.

The issue in 2004 won't be whether to cut taxes - it will be whether to raise them, by letting the cut expire. And any poll asking if voters want a tax increase will find huge majorities saying, "No way!" Accordingly, Bush won't accuse his rivals of opposing the tax cut. Rather, he'll charge that they want a tax hike. In the language of electoral politics, that is the equivalent of supporting murder, rape and arson. The last candidate who ran promising to raise taxes was Walter Mondale in 1984 - who lost in a landslide. Bush will happily tick off the tax "increases" his rival supports by refusing to extend the tax cuts past the sunset.
Watching the Democratic nominee try to flip-flop like a fish - while Bush guts him on taxes - should be great fun.