A popular anti-Bush couplet among Democrats goes like this: “Like father, like son, one term, and he’s done.”

George W. Bush has spent more than three years seeking to ensure he won’t meet his father’s fate. But in crafting election strategy, the son is a lot more like his father than he sometimes seems.

Bush and top aides say this is a “big-picture” election pitting sharply different views of how to meet major national challenges. At the same time, he is seeking to compensate for shortcomings in his record by matching his father’s use of “wedge” issues.

In 1988, the elder Bush assailed Democrat Michael Dukakis for opposing a bill requiring Massachusetts students to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Bush wrapped himself in the flag, made a much publicized visit to a flag-making factory and criticized Dukakis’ stance as unpatriotic.

An even more emotional appeal made the point that Dukakis was soft on crime by citing a black prisoner named Willie Horton who murdered a Maryland couple during a state-sanctioned weekend leave.

An ad run by a pro-Bush group without formal ties to his campaign made Horton look especially menacing, but Bush and campaign surrogates, including son George, also used the issue.

The two subjects, while reflecting legitimate differences between the candidates, hardly were the main ones facing the country. A similar thing is happening this year in the wake of a Massachusetts court decision legalizing gay marriages in the Bay State.

Bush has endorsed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman in an effort to firm up support among conservatives upset at his fiscal record and concerned he hasn’t done enough to win confirmation of conservative judicial nominees.

Congress seems unlikely to muster the two-thirds’ vote needed in each house to pass a constitutional amendment on to the states. But the White House high command recognizes it creates discomfort for the Democrats, and it provides a useful distraction from the economy and foreign policy.

The Republicans say they welcome a debate on those issues. But claims of economic gains are undercut by the loss of 3 million jobs and the re-emergence of deficits. And Bush’s contention that he has made progress in the war on terrorism is undercut by a failure to find Osama bin Laden and the public’s increasing doubts over the Iraq war.

Beyond the use of wedge issues, there’s a parallel between the way this president and his father approached the “big issue” of taxes.

The elder Bush used his acceptance speech at the 1988 Republican convention to vow “no new taxes,” even though some aides believed that pledge was unsustainable due to the deficits incurred under Ronald Reagan. As a result, Bush suffered politically when he accepted some tax increases as part of a deficit reduction package.

This president still is pushing tax cuts as the best spur to economic growth. And, like his father, Bush refuses to admit that tax increases eventually might be necessary, something recently acknowledged by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

To be sure, Bush plans to assail Kerry for votes to cut defense spending and for an overall record rated as the Senate’s most liberal by the nonpartisan National Journal.

But increasingly, it looks as if this president may want to stress the kinds of side issues his father did. It worked for the elder Bush, in part because Dukakis was inept at defending himself. But Kerry is determined not to make that mistake, which is why many Democrats think the outcome may be different this time.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News.