Lately, I’ve been a reliable source of gloom and doom here at R4′08. This is largely because my political spider sense, which is often right, though not always, agrees with that of folks like Frank Luntz, Fred Siegel, and Mona Charen, inasmuch as I believe that the most likely outcome next November is a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic president. But that doesn’t mean that such an outcome is the only possible outcome. To the contrary, we still have over a year until the election. As such, it’s time to start talking about what Republicans can do to win next year’s race for the White House.
The latest polling averages from Real Clear Politics suggest that the almost certain Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, leads the GOP Big Three by a range of 2 to 10 percentage points, with Rudy doing best against Hillary and Romney faring worst. The closeness of the race is a testament to Hillary’s high negatives, as well as to the fact that all of our guys enjoy some degree of independence from the national Republican establishment of the last few years. Put simply, our guys can point to things like Iraq and rightly claim that they had “nuttin’ to do with it.” In this sense, we are lucky that a sitting veep is not representing our side in the race, as he’d almost certainly lose to Hillary. Big time.
But a polarizing opponent and a degree of independence are not enough for our guys to actually beat the Democrats next year. Those factors will ensure that the election is another nailbiter, though probably with different swing states, but in order for our guys to surpass Clinton, they have to be able to win some combination of a) Kerry voters who don’t want to vote for Hillary and b) Bush voters who have ripped the “W” from their car.
What do these groups have in common? Neither of them like President Bush. The former group couldn’t stomach him in 2004, which means they almost certainly loathe the man now. The latter group likely feels betrayed by the presdent or disenchanted with his presidency and is in no mood to elect a president who will (heh) stay the course of the Bush White House. As such, in order for one of our guys to win, he’s going to have to run against both the Democrats AND George W. Bush.
Note that this is not an ideological statement. This is not a recommendation to run up the middle, or down the center, or however the saying goes. Nor is it a call to run to Bush’s right, though that’s certainly preferable on some issues. The GOP nominee needs to stake out popular conservative positions that win elections, as many of them are currently doing, while also channeling voters’ anger at Bush and congressional Republicans. If I were advising any of the GOP presidential contenders, I would recommend that he repeat the following phrases early and often:
1) There was no excuse for the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the wake of charges of cronyism regarding the Administration’s handling of Katrina, the president’s selection of his personal counsel to fill a vacancy on SCOTUS was politically tone-deaf and ill-advised. Miers’ lack of a coherent judicial philosophy, though, was the core of the problem, and the president’s assurance that Miers was a good pick because she had the right religious values for the job added insult to injury. Judicial conservatives rightly explained to the president that the job of a Supreme Court Justice was to make decisions based on the words of the Constitution, not personal values, well-meaning or otherwise. A judicial activist by any other name is still a judicial activist. The president’s attempt to sneak one onto SCOTUS would be an easy target for a GOP presidential candidate who wants to reassure the base on judges while decrying the cronyism and incompetence of the Bush Administration.
2) There was no excuse for the Administration’s handling of Katrina. This marked the point at which the president’s poll numbers took a major nose-dive and never really recovered. The Katrina response embodies the incompetence that voters now associate with the Bush White House and the national GOP. Rudy, Romney, and Thompson should be explaining to voters why they would be better able to handle a crisis than the current White House occupant.
3) There is no excuse for the situation in Iraq. Well, okay, there is a fairly significant excuse for the situation in Iraq: the millennia-old pathologies of the Arab world. But there was no excuse for not recognizing the existence of those pathologies from the start, there was no excuse for not taking them into account when embarking on a project to graft a Western-style liberal democracy onto Mesopotamia, and there was no excuse for not adequately communicating to the American people the sacrifices required for this war other than the occasional presentation of a false choice such as, “stay the course/cut and run.” All of our guys seem wedded to the Bush Doctrine; perhaps the GOP base will accept no less. But even an advocate for the Bush Doctrine can quibble with the president’s execution of his own doctrine. And while I’m not holding my breath, I’d also like to see our guys adopt the Derbyshire Maxim on Foreign Policy (my name for it, not his):
What is really not in America’s interest is for us to go into wars we do not intend to conclude swiftly and decisively, and with the prior understanding that
(a) Brief, ferocious punitive or monitory expeditions against regimes that have vexed us are likely to leave major chaos behind when concluded; and
(b) Complete pacification of largely-unfriendly, nation-sized populations is likely only possible by “Roman” methods; if we can’t stomach those methods, we should not embark on such projects.
Ever notice how John Derbyshire seems to be right about everything?
4) There is no excuse for the president’s unwillingness to veto a single spending bill. Except, of course, the bill funding stem cell research. Endless government spending with the sole exception being that which offends the president’s religious beliefs is a governance so distinctly unconservative that I just don’t know where to start. Again, our guys have all been talking about fiscal sanity, but none have channeled the anger of the American people against the Congress who spent so recklessly and the president who signed such recklessness into law. Wait, I take that back. John McCain used his drunken sailor joke at every appearance and debate that I saw. The other candidates should start doing the same. Well, with better jokes of course. And they shouldn’t be afraid to point the finger.
5) There is no excuse for the president’s attempt to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. Nor is there any excuse for the attempt to paint those who opposed it as backwards bigots. This was the last straw for many former Bush supporters. And it demonstrates the hubris of the national GOP establishment. Oppose amnesty? You’re not a real conservative. Oppose spending? Ditto. Oppose Wilsonianism? Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. And so on. That’s why nearly half of the Americans who voted for President Bush in 2004 now disapprove of his job performance. In order to win their votes, the GOP nominee needs to do the same. My suggestions would be a good start.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Ah but they can’t do that until they win the nomination. Thats why they are going to have major problems, and thats why Hillary’s decision to start triangulating already is quite smart.
The Republican field is so unstable that no candidate can afford to move to the center yet.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Dave G,
I think you might have added Peggy Noonan to your list of journalists.
I agree on most points. However I don’t like the use of the “A” world regarding illegal immigrants. We should have focused on border security first so that any further addressing the issue of immigration, conserning those here and otherwise, would have had a solid basis from which to work from. The misuse of the word hurts our side.
Amnesty is a pardon, a free pass..like a jubilee. That’s not what had been proposed. Not that I’m advocating for such a thing. I just think it’s not helpful and seemed harsh to rail against, in many people’s opinion, what seemed to be a punitive, costly and long solution to citizenship for lawbreakers.
I think borders first, reasonable solution for transition of millions already here, and no more of the angry use of the “A” word if it does not apply.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
re #1
I don’t think you sacrifice the primary if you make these your top 5 talking points (probably include Islamic Terrorism in there as a sixth)
Where is this candidate?
July 25th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Nice post, DaveG
July 25th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Dave,
It’s interesting to note that Hubert Humphrey was very tied to LBJ for the 1968 primaries and much of the general election. After he and Nixon secured their respective nominations, Humphrey trailed by as much as 20 points (!) in the polls. Even after Humphrey broke with Johnson on Vietnam, it wasn’t until Johnson ordered a halt to the bombing and an announcement of peace agreement that Humphrey rebounded to within the margin of error of Nixon. If Nixon and Kissinger hadn’t sabotaged the peace agreement, Humphrey might well have won.
My point in bringing that up is to ask what you think the likely hood of Bush doing something similar to help the Republican nominee? Say like ordering half of our forces to withdraw. As the prospect of President Clinton comes closer and closer to fruition, that might spur Bush into action. But it seems like even that would be too little, too late. Absent something like that, I don’t see how the Republican nominee could repudiate Bush until he actually gets the nomination otherwise he’ll be dead in the water.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
More Doom and Gloom
Has any GOP candidate excused Harriet Miers? Has Rudy or Mitt or Fred? Have they had anything good to say about her?
Has anyone praised or stood up for Bush’s performance on Katrina? I think one of Rudy’s 12 Commitments is to drastically improve response to crises and disasters and points out Katrina specifically as failure?
On Immingartion, the top 3 candidates opposed Bush on it and the guy who supported him was finished within days of the bill’s failure.
On Iraq, again both Mitt and Rudy have distanced themselves from Bush. Rudy specifically spoke up on Pakistan and basically said Bush is on a fool’s errenad with Musharraf. He said Bush has overemphasized Iraq to the detriment of the greater War. He’s hired as his chief Middle East advisor a guy who’s repeatedly spoken and written about the folly of Bush’s democracy project and has much more of a skeptic on Iraq and the administration’s policy there. True, no one is calling for withdrawal like the dems, but no one is acting as a cheerleader for Bush on Iraq, either. Except McCain, and again, he’s no longer a realistic contender.
You have more of a point on spending.
It’s still early in the primary and Bush still has 70% approval among republicans and even more among conservatives. To think that someone is going to come out and repudiate him is not going to happen.
The candidates are laying the groundwork, though, and I suspect that once someone is nominated and people start paying attention, you’ll see them become more of their own man.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
“you’ll see them become more of their own man.”
- as in, what they’re saying now is not really what they’re thinking, and that once they win the nomination they’ll flop back to the center?
What a cynical world we live in. We just accept this in our candidates…
July 26th, 2007 at 2:25 am
Well Dave,
I thought your analysis was spot-on,,,until you got to the recommendations.
Some obvious problems, point by point.
1. Meirs. This is base-pandering. Most Americans never even got to know her – her takedown was a RW hit, pulled off long before she got her hearing, much less her “up or down vote”. Raising this issue wont get you any new voters, just a little bit extra panda for the base.
2. Katrina. This one might be smart, given that you have 2 guys who will be touting their exeutive experience. But it is dangerous too, because it opens the door to the obvious question of what the hell happened to FEMA, which under Clinton, was a very well run agency. Open the door, and those questions will be asked, and the answers will reflect badly on the party even more so than just Bush (since he has already taken his hit on this).
3. Iraq. Now this will be a very hard sell. First question that will be raised is the obvious one – where the hell were you when serious questions should have been raised, or concerns aired? All of your potential nominees were lock-step behind Bush every step of the way, and if you raise the issue, your guys will end up being saddled with it. Well, even if you dont raise it, they will be saddled with it.
4. Spending. Once agian – you will end up doing a lot of damage to the party with this one, since it was the GOP passing all those bills that you think he should have been vetoing. Nothing quite like the head of the ticket going to war with those further down to give the impression of a solid front, eh?
5. “Amnesty” More base pandering. As per Rasmussen, the American people trust the Dems more than the GOP on immigration – which should tell you that the “amnesty’ line, so favored on the right, isnt going to get you very far beyond the base.
Man, you guys are screwed, aintcha?
July 26th, 2007 at 8:46 am
In the http://www.2008presidentialpoll.com/ Ron Paul is destroying the Republican rivals and i have not a clue why? Is this guy legit? A month ago i would not have given this guy a second look.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Excellent post DaveG. Dirty laundry needs to be aired out every now & then. I just remember these two words: Roberts & Alito. Roberts & Alito!!!
July 26th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
I thought more people would have commented on this analysis. Too bad. I thought it was insightful and it could have prompted a strategic discussion that, as a party, we should be having.