Hundreds of thousands of pro-choice and anti-Bush activists marched on the Mall Sunday, the largest demonstration against the agenda of a sitting president in decades.
But the question remains whether the spirit of the march represents the vanguard of a growing movement that will topple President Bush in November, or if it is merely a loud celebration of what will remain a sizable minority out of power for at least another four years.
Charles Black, an informal adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign, saw the rally as little else than a well-financed, well-organized gathering of hard-core Democrats.
“I can’t imagine anyone came to that rally undecided,” Mr. Black said. “Obviously, the pro-choice groups went to a lot of trouble and expense to put forward a huge crowd, including bringing in people from overseas. I compliment them on it.
“But, I doubt seriously if there is much new in terms of political meaning to it.”
Although the focus of the march was abortion rights, many left-wing groups took the opportunity to express broader views. The organizers of the March for Women’s Lives said more than 1,200 groups participated, ranging from the moderately liberal to hard left wing, and many unrelated to abortion rights.
Elaine Kamarck, a former staffer in the Clinton White House who teaches at the Kennedy School of Government, said the rally will be the tipping point to reverse Mr. Bush’s narrow lead in national polls over Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
“People are really mobilized against him,” Ms. Kamarck said. “There is the same kind of intensity against Bush that the Republicans had against Bill Clinton.”
That intense partisan opposition to Mr. Clinton did not result in his defeat in 1996. But this time, Ms. Kamarck said, it will be different.
“President Clinton ran a good government. He had a wonderful, hot economy,” she said. “Even people who hated Bill Clinton for personal reasons said, ’Gee, he’s doing a good job.’ That is what people want from their president, and on no account is this president doing a good job.”
National polls and polls in many battleground states for the November election show Mr. Bush leading Mr. Kerry — despite increased violence in Iraq, public hearings on the September 11 attacks and a slate of books critical of the president.
A poll released yesterday by Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion shows Mr. Bush is favored by 47 percent of registered voters, with Mr. Kerry trailing with 44 percent.
Charles O. Jones, a senior fellow for governance studies at the Brookings Institution, said Sunday’s rally was “probably the largest” march against a president’s policies since Lyndon B. Johnson was directing the Vietnam War.
“Unquestionably, it was a Democratic rally,” Mr. Jones said. “It suggests that both parties’ conventions will be expressive to say the least.”
What the march also showed, Mr. Jones said, is that the nation is not just evenly divided, but sides are passionately entrenched in their positions.
“It has come to be perfectly acceptable for public officials to not only oppose the president, but to use language which is quite extraordinary, to call him a liar, for example,” Mr. Jones said. “That seems to me to be different and unusual.”
But the passion of the left displayed on Sunday also can serve to fire up Mr. Bush’s base of Republican voters.
“The president and his supporters now must be motivated to set the record straight,” Mr. Jones said.
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