Posted on 03/04/2004 9:54:39 AM PST by Fishface
Republican malaise Robert Novak (back to web version) | Send March 4, 2004
WASHINGTON -- At 1 p.m. on Feb. 25, some 15 prominent Republicans invited to be surrogates in the coming presidential campaign gathered at Bush-Cheney headquarters in suburban Northern Virginia for a private briefing. Less than two hours earlier that day, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan detonated a political bombshell. To judge from the bland and uninformative briefing, nobody on the president's campaign team heard the explosion.
Former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, a Washington lawyer-lobbyist who last year resigned as figurehead chairman of the Republican National Committee to become figurehead chairman of Bush-Cheney '04, led the precisely orchestrated, one-hour briefing. He did not mention that Greenspan had just testified to Congress advocating reduced Social Security benefits. Racicot might be excused for being silent and unaware of the central banker's latest political mischief, since it also escaped the attention that morning of key Bush policymakers.
The invited advocates were handed a thick batch of talking points to ingest by the campaign's appropriately named chief of surrogates, Julie Cram. Nowhere in the handout did the forbidden words "Social Security" appear. "The president's opponents are against personal retirement accounts" is the closest the briefing material came to the dreaded subject. Many prospective surrogates left campaign headquarters profoundly depressed by the mediocre briefing and the material given them.
This fits the deepening malaise among Republicans in the capital. They are neither surprised nor terribly worried by polls that temporarily show George W. Bush trailing John Kerry. What worries the GOP faithful is the absence of firm leadership in their party either at the White House or on Capitol Hill.
The lack of a ready response to Greenspan, while Democrats quickly turned his comments into an indictment of President Bush's tax cuts, was not an isolated failing. Today, Republicans on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue seem to be going in opposite directions.
-- Disagreement between congressional Republicans and Bush over the size of the highway bill reflects mutual recriminations over runaway federal spending in general. While the president's aides are angered by the lawmakers' addiction to concrete, conservative lawmakers are furious that Bush's budget has preserved and actually increased federal funding for the arts.
-- Bush's call to make his tax cuts permanent and to repeal the estate tax for all time leaves Republicans in Congress perplexed about how they will be able to write a budget without a massive increase in the huge deficit that never will command a majority vote.
-- House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and his allies are bitter that they received no backing from the president and administration in their efforts to keep the independent 9-11 investigation from extending into the campaign season.
-- The president came out for a constitutional amendment to bar gay marriage without consulting congressional Republican leaders, which helps explain the unenthusiastic reception from his own party on Capitol Hill.
-- Congressional Republicans still have not recovered from the shock of the President's Economic Report extolling the outsourcing of industrial jobs -- good economics perhaps, bad politics definitely.
The disaffection is such that over the last two weeks, normally loyal Republicans -- actually including more than a few members of Congress -- are privately talking about political merits in the election of Sen. Kerry. Their reasoning goes like this: There is no way Democrats can win the House or Senate even if Bush loses. If Bush is re-elected, Democrats are likely to win both the House and Senate in a 2006 midterm rebound. If Kerry wins, Republicans will be able to bounce back with congressional gains in 2006.
To voice such heretical thoughts suggests that Republicans on Capitol Hill are more interested in maintaining the fruits of majority status first won in 1994 rather than in governing the country. A few thoughtful GOP lawmakers ponder the record of the first time in 40 years that the party has controlled both the executive and legislative branches, and conclude that record is deeply disappointing.
But incipient heresy also reflects shortcomings of the Bush political operation. Its emphasis has been on fund-raising and organization, with deficiencies in communicating and leadership. The president is in political trouble, and his disaffected supporters who should be backing him aggressively provide the evidence.
What a bunch of pansies. If they don't want to be in the majority, they ought to RESIGN. For God's sakes...they've got some problems with the President's intraparty communication skills, so they want a Democrat to win??
I am aghast, but I am also a bit skeptical: if these guys had any balls, they'd speak out and say who they are!
Rush is right: the Republicans are still learning how to be a majority party. The Democrats were a majority for so long, they still think they're in charge. Conservatives need to get some testicular fortitude and stand up to libs.
Maybe Zell Miller can give lessons.
You might be right. We can't agree on whether to prioritize conservatism or power, principle or people. Heck, we can't even agree on the definition of conseratism anymore.
I guess we can only hope that their side is more fractured than our side. GO RALPHIE!
The reality is that there is nothing going on here but some weak Bush poll numbers. Believe me, that is all that matters here. If the poll numbers go up and stay up, there won't be any talk of "malaise" and all the Republicans will be happy as clams.
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If Novak is truthful, and I have no reason to doubt it, these "normally loyal Republicans" lack confidence. They are conceding something (GOP likely to suffer losses in 2006, given a Bush reelection) that they ought not concede.
No surprise, but sad. I prefer politicians who are confident regarding their positions, and who demonstrate a bit of leadership.
I will agree that the defensive actions and lack of effective communication management from the White House is disturbing. I think they were completely knocked off their 2004 strategy with the Dean fallout, the WMD report, and focus on lack of job growth. As of December 31, 2003, Saddam had just been caught, the economic growth was showing great numbers, and they were already shifting to the center for the election. They had no good defense prepared nor effective talking points on jobs, WMD, etc. Bad planning, indeed.
However I can believe that some freshmen congressmen would be immature enough to say something that politically stupid.
Most new congressmen are mature, strong, experienced politicians, however quite a few are hand pupits of the powers-that-be in their district. They are hand-picked to run for congress because of their weaknesses and willingness to follow instructions.
They are happy just to spend their time going to cocktail parties and screwing the female "lobbyists" while their benefactors run their office through their hand-picked AAs.
{/rant}
Huh?! Every poll since February 10 has had Kerry ahead of or tied with Bush, except for the Rasmussen Poll which consequently is the only one regularly featured on FR threads...
Did it ever occur to Novak---or Hastert---that Bush WANTS the 9/11 commission to go on through the political season? That every reminder of 9/11 makes Bush look stronger and the Dems weaker? Maybe Hastert ought to get a clue.
How about his? Republicans in the SENATE better shape up and RUN SOME FREAKING GOOD CANDIDATES, because there is a very real possibility that Bush will do very well and that we might lose the Senate. That's right, folks. Nighthorse Campbell is retiring, leaving us in the lurch for a replacement. Murkowski is in trouble in Alaska. We have no real candidate in Illinois or Washington or California or Arkansas---all states where we had plenty of "lead time" and should have produced solid candidates.
Nichols stepping down possibly opens up Oklahoma, while NO ONE has stepped forward to really challenge Harry Reid.
Novak, and the Congressional GOP, can whine all they want about what "Bush does," but the bottom line is that CONGRESS, not the PRESIDENT, authorizes spending and passes budgets. These spineless wimps didn't stand up one time and defeat CFR, or Medicare/Prescript Drug, or any of these other ridiculous spending programs. For Senators or Reps to complain about spending is repulsive.
Finally, this continues the trend that I have said about Novak for some time. He NEVER reports anything positive on Bush. All of his "insider" accounts are by insiders that dislike Bush. So he only knows half of "his stuff," and I trust nothing I read from him.
I will say this again: Plame was widely known in Washington circles to be an employee of the CIA. It was no secret.
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