[Mb-civic] Bush's Midterm Challenge - Washington Post
William Swiggard
swiggard at comcast.net
Sun Jan 29 06:23:40 PST 2006
Bush's Midterm Challenge
Rebuilding Public Support May Bolster GOP Candidates
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 29, 2006; A01
President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday night marks the
opening of a midterm election year eagerly anticipated by Democrats and
fraught with worries for Republicans, whose hopes in November may depend
in large part on how successfully Bush can turn around his troubled
presidency.
After his reelection victory in 2004, Bush often pointed out that he
would never again be on a ballot as a candidate. But the coming year in
many ways represents another national campaign for the president, aimed
at preserving the gains his party has made in the past five years, as
well as rehabilitating a reputation that has come under brutal assault
from the opposition in recent months.
There is no doubt that Bush intends to run this campaign as forcefully
as if he were on the ballot himself. He ended 2005, the worst year of
his presidency, with an aggressive defense of his Iraq policies, and he
has begun the new year with an uncompromising justification of his
policy of warrantless domestic surveillance.
Tuesday's speech, with its massive prime-time audience, may be the most
important forum Bush has all year to try to seize the initiative from
the Democrats and frame the election season on his terms. But he will be
standing in the House as a far less formidable politician than when he
stood on the same podium a year ago. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll
shows Bush with a lower approval rating than any postwar president at
the start of his sixth year in office -- with the exception of Richard
M. Nixon, who was crippled by Watergate.
Bush's approval rating now stands at 42 percent, down from 46 percent at
the beginning of the year, although still three percentage points higher
than the low point of his presidency last November.
The poll also shows that the public prefers the direction Democrats in
Congress would take the country as opposed to the path set by the
president, that Americans trust Democrats over Republicans to address
the country's biggest problems and that they strongly favor Democrats
over Republicans in their vote for the House.
The political stakes this year are especially high. What happens will
affect not only the final years of Bush's presidency, but also will
shape what is likely to be an even bigger election for his successor in
2008. Republicans have been on the ascendancy throughout the Bush
presidency, but they begin the year not only resigned to some losses in
Congress but also fearful that, under a worst-case scenario, an eruption
of voter dissatisfaction could cost them control of the House or Senate
or both.
Uniting Republicans
Gary Jacobson, a political science professor at the University of
California at San Diego, said the key from Bush's vantage point is
maintaining near-universal support for the president from Republicans.
Last fall, when Bush's approval ratings fell to their lowest point, he
suffered erosion among Republicans, but later polls have shown that he
regained some of that support. "As long as he can hold support of his
own partisans, he can keep the Republicans in Congress from getting too
nervous," Jacobson said.
Bush also has some intangible assets. The first is that Bush has proved
to be a skilled and effective political candidate who beat the odds in
the past and would like nothing better than to upset conventional
assumptions again this year. The other is that Democrats must take
maximum advantage of every opportunity because the number of truly
competitive House districts is low by historical standards.
Bush won reelection in 2004 with a lower approval rating than any other
reelected president of the post-World War II era, save for Harry S.
Truman. Rhodes Cook, an independent political analyst, said Bush's
overall approval rating may be less damaging politically than it was for
other presidents. "His strength is in fundraising and mobilizing the
base," Cook said. "He can still do both very well."
Democrats see the political landscape as the most favorable to them
since Bush took office. They view the war in Iraq as a continuing
political burden for the administration, and hope to reap gains on the
corruption issue, epitomized by the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. "Any
reasonable reading of the trends would suggest that Democrats can expect
significant gains this November," said Paul Harstad, a Democratic
pollster. "That includes historical patterns, Republican scandals and a
growing realization of the insidious cost of unchallenged Republican rule."
But Bush and his team believe they can change the equation. White House
Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove put Democrats on notice a week ago when
he promised a campaign of sharp contrasts on national security, taxes
and the economy, and judicial philosophy. That signaled a rerun of
previous Bush campaigns, in which Republicans forced Democrats into a
debate on national security and terrorism, polarized the electorate, and
used those and other issues to mobilize and turn out rank-and-file
Republicans in large numbers.
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman offered a cautious
overall forecast for the midterms, saying he expects a tough year and
knows that the party in power often loses seats in midterm races. "We
have a historical challenge to overcome," he said. "I believe we will
overcome that. I believe we will maintain our majorities in the House
and the Senate."
The 'Six-Year Itch'
History appears to favor the Democrats. Midterm elections in the sixth
year of a two-term presidency have proved particularly difficult for the
party in the White House. Republicans suffered significant losses in the
midterm elections of 1958, 1974 and 1986, the sixth year of presidency
for Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon and Ronald Reagan, respectively. Democrats
took a bath in 1966, the sixth year of the combined administrations of
John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
But there was a notable anomaly. In 1998, aided by public backlash
against Republican calls for impeachment, Democrats gained seats in the
House and held even in the Senate in Bill Clinton's sixth year in office.
Whether that was an aberration or the disintegration of the pattern of
the "six-year itch" will not be clear until November. Nor will it be
clear, even if the Democrats gain nominal ground in November, whether
that signals a broader shift away from the Republicans that could carry
over to 2008 or was merely an outcome typical of midterm elections.
The Post-ABC News poll offers a revealing portrait of a restless
electorate at the start of the campaign year. By 51 percent to 35
percent, Americans said they preferred to go in the direction outlined
by congressional Democrats rather than the direction established by the
president. On the eve of last year's State of the Union address, 45
percent said they preferred to follow the path of the president,
compared with 39 percent who said they favored the Democrats' course.
By 54 percent to 38 percent, voters surveyed said they would vote for
the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate for the House in
November. That is one of the largest margins favoring the Democrats in
two decades, although the gerrymandered House districts mean that
incumbents are safer today than they were in the past.
By 51 percent to 37 percent, Americans said they trust the Democrats
more than the Republicans with the main problems facing the country over
the next few years, the first time since spring 1992 that Democrats have
gained more than 50 percent support on that question.
Four in 10 (43 percent) surveyed said they approve of the way Congress
is doing its job, while 64 percent said they approve of the job their
own member of the House is doing. In comparison, in March 1994, the year
Republicans captured control of the House and Senate, approval of the
Democratic-controlled Congress stood at 35 percent, with 62 percent
approving the job their own House member was doing.
Democrats have gained ground in the past two months on two other
measures. The public sees Democrats as more likely to stand up to
lobbyists and special-interest groups, 46 percent to 27 percent. In
December, Democrats held a lead of eight percentage points. Republicans
still are viewed as having stronger leaders, but Democrats have narrowed
that gap by more than half.
A total of 1,002 randomly selected adults were interviewed nationally
Jan. 23-26 for the Post-ABC News survey. The margin of sampling error
for the overall results is plus or minus three percentage points.
Front-Burner Issues
In the latest poll, Bush received negative marks for his handling of
Iraq, the federal budget deficit, ethics in government, prescription
drugs for the elderly, the economy, immigration, health care and taxes.
Only on terrorism did the poll find that more than 50 percent of
Americans approved of his performance.
Where Bush has dropped significantly is among independent voters. His
approval rating in the latest Post-ABC poll among independents is 37
percent. The Post-ABC News poll showed that Americans remain far from
optimistic about the economy, despite steady growth. Forty percent
called the economy good or excellent, down from 45 percent in December.
Democrats believe events on the ground, at home and abroad, will
override political strategy and tactics this year. "If the economy
behaves on the upside of the range and things go better than expected in
Iraq, then Republicans have a fighting chance to limit their losses,"
said William A. Galston, a Clinton administration official now at the
Brookings Institution. "If not, it's going to be a long, grim fall for
the Republican Party."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012801086.html
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