 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Presented with a muddled Democratic opposition, afforded tremendous financial advantages, led by a hugely popular president, and blessed with politically friendly terrain, Republicans nevertheless are squandering their advantages.
As recently as October 10, the GOP looked poised to regain control of the Senate and at least maintain its six-seat edge in the House. Now, though, the Senate contest looks like an even battle, and the House majority itself may yet slip away. The problems are the same ones that plagued Republicans in 1998, when the consensus of pundits predicted a 15-to-20 seat GOP House gain but I correctly forecast a five-seat loss: Heavy-handedness, tin ears, and a lack of backbone. In late August 1998, the majority of Americans were angry at President Bill Clinton and open to, but not eager for, a solemn effort to impeach him and remove him from office. But they wanted the elections to be about themselves and their kitchen-counter concerns, not about impeachment. Republicans, however, tried to use the Lewinsky scandal as a political bludgeon — but succeeded only in looking like bullies and blowhards. Republicans so loudly sounded the impeachment trumpet that they couldn't hear voter concerns about anything else. Result: In a year that should have favored them overwhelmingly, they lost seats — and were lucky even to keep their majority. Now the Republicans' issue isn't impeachment, it's war. Again, their basic position enjoys majority support. But again, the public's support is that of being braced for unpleasant duty, not eagerly girded up for a triumphant battle. The public knows that war, like impeachment, is dreadfully serious business. The public resents efforts to use the prospect of war too blatantly for political gain. Witness the surge in support two weeks ago (according to pollster John Zogby) for the now-deceased Minnesota leftie Paul Wellstone after GOP challenger Norm Coleman tried to brutalize Wellstone for being anti-military. In the days before Wellstone's plane crashed, voters responded favorably to the apparently courageous integrity of Wellstone's philosophical stance, rather than punishing him for taking the "wrong" position. Across the country, Republicans have been over-exuberant in raising war-related issues. They say, correctly, that their Democratic opponents are comparatively weaker on support for the military. But to drive home that story, they've been using sledgehammers when only a little force is required to pin the tale on the donkeys. In some quarters, their tactics are starting to cause a backlash. Meanwhile, on all other issues, Republicans are playing defense and merely trying to blunt Democratic attacks. Following the lead of the White House, Republicans have offered no cogent strategy for aiding a semi-struggling economy and no intelligent incentives for investors worried about the markets. (Particularly galling was the GOP House Ways & Means Committee's failure to pass cuts in individual income taxes assessed on dividend receipts.) They have also failed effectively to make a major issue out of the Senate Democrats' outrageously unfair treatment of Bush judicial nominees. Led by their appropriators, Republicans as a whole have made a fine art, for five years, of saying "me too" to demands for more and more domestic spending. And on issues such as immigration reform, partial-birth abortion or parental consent — issues where conservative positions enjoy broad popular support — Republicans have offered voters next to nothing. Moreover, they weakly succumbed to the creation of an overbearing, federally bureaucratized corps of airport security personnel who harass innocent travelers without regard to common sense or individual just cause. Having committed so many political blunders, Republicans ordinarily would be headed for a big electoral defeat. That they might narrowly avoid one is due not to their message, but to their money and their luck. Led by a diligent effort by President Bush, Republicans have amassed a significant financial edge heading into the last two weeks of the campaign. Favored by reapportionment, Republicans effectively have a cushion of between six and nine extra House seats on top of their current six-seat majority. Favored by geography in the Senate races, Republicans are fighting most of the contested races in states that lean strongly Republican or that, at worst, tend to be neutral: South Dakota, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Texas in the former category; Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota and maybe Louisiana in the latter. (In addition, ordinarily Democratic New Jersey remains in play for the GOP, but Republicans have conceded the normally Republican stronghold of Montana.) Finally, Republicans are blessed by the muddled message their Democratic opponents have put forward. Democrats are wrong on many domestic and economic issues, and voters know it — so Democrats, too, have been fumbling to find political traction. All of which means that, under the leadership of a hugely popular president, this should be a year of big Republican gains. Instead, though, look for Republicans to struggle. Control of the House may not be apparent until late into the morning after election day; the final Senate lineup may await decisions of potential party-switchers and the results of a Louisiana runoff on December 7. And don't be surprised
if enough elections are close enough that federal courts again are called
in to referee. |
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
f
Republicans find themselves with majorities in both the House and Senate
after next month's elections, they will have drifted into power without
doing much to earn it. 
