Rupert Cornwell: Mr Bush's new war is with the Democratic Party

As a setting to mark the de facto end of war, George Bush could not have picked a better one: the White House Rose Garden on a gorgeous Washington spring day – all warm sunshine, blooming dogwoods and new beginnings. Yet the significance of the occasion was less the weather than the topic of the hour. Victory was "certain," he declared, stating the obvious. Yet for the first time in months, Iraq was almost a parenthesis in a presidential speech. On Tuesday, Mr Bush wanted to talk about tax cuts, the economy – in other words (though he did not stoop to refer directly to so trivial a topic while American troops are still risking their lives in the field), his 2004 re-election campaign.

There may be firefights in Mosul, hideously complicated discussions about the shape of a post-Saddam government in Nasiriya, not to mention sabre-rattling against Syria and cratefuls of diplomatic crockery to be repaired at the UN and with key US allies. But like the first buds of April, familiar topics are re-emerging in US politics. Mr Bush may have won a war, but in barely 18 months Americans will decide whether he wins a second term. And having had the ultimate insider's view of what happened to his father, this George Bush knows better than anyone that triumph in the Gulf is no guarantee of triumph at the ballot box.

Indeed at first glance, the circumstances of 1991 are uncannily similar to those of 2003. Everyone loves a military victor, but polls show that by a margin of three to one, Americans believe that Mr Bush should devote his energies not to the war on terror, nor even the future of Iraq (which, contrary to the most cynical assumptions, is a concern for many US citizens), but to the economy.

And not unreasonably. America may be doing better than Germany or Japan, but all things are relative. Gerhard Schröder would give his eye teeth for the 2 per cent-plus growth expected in the US this year. The fact remains however that since Mr Bush took office in January 2001, some two million jobs have gone. Wall Street's plunge and a host of corporate scandals have left thousands of pension plans in ruins, while the second instalment of a double-dip recession may lie in wait.

Just this week, the Federal Reserve reported that excess factory capacity was at its highest level in 20 years, suggesting that the expected post-Iraq rebound in confidence may not be enough to put matters to rights. "It's the economy, stupid," was the Clinton campaign's mantra in 1992, and this year's pack of Democratic candidates are frantically studying that playbook for help in what will be surely a tougher race.

This time there will be no independent third candidate like Ross Perot to give cover in times of trouble, and take votes from an incumbent Bush. Most important, the national security card – ever one of the strongest in a Republican's hand – looms far larger than it did in those faroff days of 1992, when books proclaimed that history had ended and terrorism was something that happened only in distant lands.

From the outset, Mr Bush and his advisers packaged the war in Iraq as the linear descendant of 11 September – so successfully that a majority of Americans believe that Saddam had a hand in bringing down the Twin Towers. They have framed the debate so that to oppose the war may be portrayed as somehow ignoring the magnitude of those terrorist attacks. Small wonder then that no group of individuals has more fervently wished for a speedy end to hostilities than that unhappy and largely forgotten band of Democratic candidates. Since the start of the year they have been hopscotching from one key primary state to another, setting out their views on health care, education, abortion and the other hardy perennials of American political discourse.

But all the fundraising and speechifying has been at best Lilliputian labourings, at worst daily evidence of a party utterly divided. Like it or not, for the last eight months the mantra has been "It's Iraq, stupid." The top-tier Democratic candidates – Joe Lieberman, Dick Gephardt, John Kerry and John Edwards – have all been, in varying degrees, in favour of the war. But the biggest short-term beneficiary has been the former governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, the most vocal of the anti-war candidates who appeal to grassroots liberal activists, disproportionately important in the primaries.

Elections, however, are won in the centre. The modern parallel that haunts some party strategists is 1972, when George McGovern captured the nomination mainly thanks to his opposition to the Vietnam war (which by then was far less popular and less defensible than today's Iraq campaign), only to be put to the sword by Richard Nixon in the general election that November.

History never repeats itself exactly, and there are important differences between now and 1972. The Democratic field is broader and stronger, and the party is unlikely to make the same mistake twice. But that year Nixon patented what became known as "the Rose Garden Strategy", making a show of remaining in Washington to deal with the real problems facing America, as his opponent scurried pygmy-like around the country.

Then Nixon relied on what he famously called the "silent majority." These days of course the patriotic, Fox-watching, flag-happy majority behind Mr Bush is anything but silent. And indeed, if his campaigning for the 2002 mid-term elections is any guide, Mr Bush will hit the road with a vengeance next year; indeed his domestic travels thus far have been carefully plotted to strengthen his support in swing states like Missouri, Pennsylvania and the most notorious of them all, Florida.

But the principle is the same. Even as Karl Rove – the President's political adviser who is attributed with almost demonic powers – has been quietly visiting the same states, inspecting local Republican party organisations, and honing local strategies, Mr Bush has been the war president, ostensibly subordinating all else to his job as commander-in-chief and his duty to protect the security of his countrymen.

In the domestic political fray, it has worked wonderfully. Nothing does more for approval ratings than a successful war; having slipped back to the pre-11 September levels of the upper 50s, Mr Bush's are back in the mid-70s.

And if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Democrats worry aloud that Mr Bush will use the open-ended "war on terror" as a tap to be turned on at will to keep people's minds off the economy and on security issues that play to Republican strengths.

But they may be too gloomy – and Mr Bush is acting like they may be too gloomy. Tuesday's Rose Garden speech was above all a pitch for his latest tax cut package (formerly $726bn, now likely to end up around $350bn). He and his spokesmen will not, or not yet, demean themselves by joining battle with individual Democrat candidates. In the weeks ahead, however, he will talk incessantly about jobs and growth, and excoriate the Democrats for obstructing his wise plans to put the country to rights.

But the margin he has to play with is not large. If the economy picks up, creating new jobs and prosperity, and the bulls take over Wall Street, no one will care about soaring trade and budget deficits. But if it does not, and the stock market weakens, Mr Bush's economic record will be hard to defend.

His prowess as a fundraiser is unchallenged: the White House aims to double its take from last time to a record $200m during the 2004 primary season, even though the President will surely have no rival for the Republican nomination. But all the money in the world can't sell a bad message. The clever Mr Rove says he expects a "close, competitive race" in 2004. Well he would say that wouldn't he? Politics will forgive everything except complacency. But then again, he might be right.