Leading Article: A Republican right turn

GEORGE BUSH has bounced back in the opinion polls, reducing the daunting lead that the Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, had built up. His acceptance speech on the last day of the Republican Party convention in Houston was a well-mixed cocktail. But some of its ingredients may leave a long hangover: for example, his repeated blaming of Congress for most of the nation's ills through its consistent blocking of legislation. After all, if Congress calls the shots, why is he bothering to stand for president? And if Congress deserves the blame for all that has gone wrong, does it not deserve credit for the achievements Mr Bush proudly recited? Four of the last five presidents have been Republicans. For all but four years, the Democrats have controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. What did Mr Bush's predecessors know that he does not?

The Democrats will say Mr Bush's record shows he has no real interest in domestic affairs; even if he tried harder, he would not have the skills to push new legislation through. They will point out that as the incumbent president he cannot escape blame for the pervasive sense of anxiety about the state of the nation's social fabric.

Mr Bush's reputation suffered when he broke his promise not to raise taxes. He apologised for that on Thursday night - and said he proposed 'to further reduce them across the board, provided we pay for these cuts with specific spending reductions . . . so that we do not increase the deficit'. Even by the standards of political pledges, that one rings unconvincingly; and there will not be many votes in his repeated desire to cut capital gains taxes. Yet the tax issue promises to be one of the Republicans' strongest negative weapons: time and again Mr Bush sought to tar his Democratic opponent as a prodigal spender and big tax-raiser.

Americans dislike paying taxes even more than Britons, and none more so than those middle-of-the-road voters over whom Mr Bush and Mr Clinton will be fighting hardest. In the struggle for their hearts and minds, the Houston convention may prove to have been a set-back for Mr Bush. Far too often it conveyed an impression that the Republicans had ceased to be a party of the mainstream, and had flaked off to the right in much the same way that, in the Seventies and early Eighties, Democratic conventions often seemed to be hijacked by the party's nuttier fringes. It was bad enough that the election platform appeared to have been taken over by the party's religious zealots, not least on abortion. On this issue, the party that wants to empower the individual believes that the individual should have no choice. The explanation is clear: Mr Bush is frightened of the party's right wing. So he gives in to it where Ronald Reagan assumed its support.

More unexpected was the sheer nastiness of the tone of many of the speeches. It was hard to say which was more repellent: Pat Buchanan's overt appeal to prejudice against homosexuals, for whose rights, he said, Bill Clinton would fight; or the covert sneers of Marilyn Quayle's declaration that in the Sixties 'not everyone dropped out, took drugs, joined in the sexual revolution or dodged the draft'. Mrs Quayle makes an unappealing ambassador of the family values that were trumpeted with such nauseating frequency in Houston; and no one is going to believe that family values constitute a policy. In the battle for centre voters, the Republicans may come to regret such moments.

Can their man come back from behind? There has been much interest in the Bush camp in John Major's success in doing just that in April, even though Conservative policies had manifestly helped to cause the recession. Yet the 1988 US presidental elections offer a closer parallel. Like John Major, Mr Bush then looked like a moderate conservative who was also the chosen heir of a charismatic but divisive leader. Both seemed to provide change with continuity, and both opposed tax increases.

The public mood in the US has changed. Mr Bush has had four years in which to prove himself. Yet despite his now somewhat tarnished triumph in the Gulf war, there has been a widespread loss of faith in his powers of leadership. He did a good deal to restore confidence on Thursday night. George Bush is a tough campaigner, especially when in attacking mode. It seems to take a good fight to energise him and remove that whining tone from his voice. But if the economy remains flat and unemployment high, his record of inaction on the home front, coupled with his party's move to the right, may - in the absence of helpful great events - prove fatal.