Posted on 10/26/2005 3:36:43 PM PDT by aceintx
Warning Signs Frank Luntz says Republicans could be in danger in 2006. by Fred Barnes 10/26/2005 12:00:00 AM
IF YOU'RE A REPUBLICAN and already worried about your party's prospects in 2006, pollster Frank Luntz, a Republican himself, has a message for you: It's worse than you think.
Luntz, who worked with Republicans in 1994 to draft the Contract With America and win a realigning election, said political conditions are as bad or worse now--only this time for Republicans, not Democrats. Republicans won 52 House seats in 1994 and have held the House since then. In 2006, he said, Republican control of the House--currently 232 seats to 203 seats--is "in jeopardy." Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to take over.
"Republicans have a whole year to get their act together," Luntz said, though they've shown no signs of doing so. "As angry and p-----off as we were about politics [in 1994], I think it's worse today," according to Luntz, who spoke yesterday at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. "The saving grace for the Republican party is Nancy Pelosi." The House Democratic leader, he said, "is being handed the perfect political storm on a plate," but she's failing to take advantage.
Luntz said there were six components of the Republican triumph in 1994: change, economic anxiety, fear, anger, betrayal, and the prominence of national issues. All of these should be working today for Democrats, he said, and could fuel a Democratic landslide in 2006.
In focus groups, Luntz measures the desire for change by asking voters if they are "basically satisfied" or think the country is on the wrong track,
causing them to prefer "a different approach." Luntz said more voters today say wrong track than he's seen "in a long time." Other Republican strategists, such as White House adviser Karl Rove, regard the right track, wrong track result in polls as politically meaningless.
Because of high economic anxiety, Luntz said, Democrat John Kerry should have won Ohio last year and captured the presidency from George W. Bush. This component has a better chance of helping Democrats in House races, he said, if only because voters may be willing to cast a protest vote against Republicans. Protest votes are uncommon in presidential races, he said. As for fear about personal and national security, it has been spurred by terrorism and the war in Iraq, Luntz said, and it, too, is now a negative factor for Republicans.
Luntz said the anger of voters is "palpable, emotional, intense." And Republican voters, the conservative ones anyway, feel betrayed by wasteful spending in Washington and Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.
In 1994, the election was nationalized over crime, guns, healthcare, taxes, and a few other issues. Now, Luntz suggested, national issues are paramount, but that doesn't automatically mean they still will be in November 2006. Republican House members, he said, want local issues to prevail next year.
Luntz said an examination today of each of the 435 House districts doesn't indicate a Democratic breakthrough in 2006, but the same was true for Republicans in 1994. If House races are nationalized, however, that may produce "a wave" that jeopardizes all Republican incumbents less than five percentage points ahead in polls. For Democrats to gain control of the House, "you need a wave."
Voters have not been galvanized by scandals in Washington, but they are alarmed about illegal immigration, Luntz said. The president's insistence on creating a "guest worker" program to employ illegals puts him "on the wrong side of the solution." When he raises illegal immigration in focus groups of 30 people, Luntz said, "you can't shut people up."
Bush suffered from Hurricane Katrina, Luntz said, in a fundamental way. Before Katrina, the president was seen as "a great leader in terms of [handling] a great crisis. In 2004, when push came to shove, we trusted him. Katrina threw that into doubt."
The good news for Republicans goes beyond Pelosi, the mention of whose name prompts groans from focus groups. Democrats are too negative, don't have an agenda, and lack a national leader. "As pathetic as Republicans are, Democrats are worse," Luntz said.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
Andy Card has led our leader astray. Mr. Rino. Time for him to go and a newly invigorated Conservative President to emerge..
Democrats finally unleashed "Scorched Earth". They hope that they will get votes simply by driving Republican negatives even if theirs suffer too.
The only saving grace for the GOP is that the Democrats are thorougly incompetent to raise a serious challenge. On the other hand, after seeing what six years of GOP rule is like, it's hard to make a serious argument against having a divided government. The more the GOP and Dems fight each other the less time they have to reach into our wallets and spend our hard-earned money.
Bush would have more support if he would fight back against the libs, but for some reason he doesn't mind being a punching bag.
At this point, my dissatisfaction with some of Bush's actions has not reached the point or so as to cause me to sit on my hands in next year's elections. However, the Miers nomination has me approaching the tipping point. If Bush pulls back from this nomination, there is still some hope.
I wouldn't have made that argument a month ago... that was back when I still held onto the hope that the GOP's faults were worth tolerating to get the SCOTUS and the courts in general fixed.
2). The piece itself doesn't mention her, doesn't mention her nomination, and, doesn't mention the uproar which the nomination has caused.
If you want to link the two, that's fine - just don't do it in the title of the thread.
"I wouldn't have made that argument a month ago... that was back when I still held onto the hope that the GOP's faults were worth tolerating to get the SCOTUS and the courts in general fixed."
Bingo!
The scorched earth policy of conservative ideologues--"I'd rather be right than in charge"--will probably lose the House and sink a half-century of work down the toilet.
You can see it here every day, not just on the Miers nomination but on other issues.
Sorry....Not sure of protocall here or how to change it
My bad - I missed the sentence mentioning her nomination. My apologies.
Psst. A House that spends like this one is not ours.
Luntz is describing my feelings perfectly. He's very smart and shrewd, so if he says Republicans are on the ropes, you can take it to the bank.
Don't change the headline from that at the source, and don't place the article in unrelated topics. Thanks.
Psst. A House that spends like this one is not ours.
In other words, you want to throw out people like Mike Pence and let Nutzi Pelosi run your life??
The go along to Get along appeaser Rinos make being tin the majority irrelevant by constantly standing in the way of Republicans doing what's right and Popular with the electorate! By your reasoning, we shouldn't fight for what's right we should slave for you RINOS and forget having our way about anything. How far sighted and reasonable of you
"As pathetic as Republicans are, Democrats are worse," Luntz said
Democrat lite is NOT an option.
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