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Warning Signs
The Weekly Standard ^ | 10/26/2005 | Fred Barnes

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.


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2006elections; aliens; fredbarnes; miers; republicanbase
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To: kaktuskid

Do you honestly believe Pence is running the House? Hate to disappoint you, but he and his allies are quite badly outnumbered.

If he were running the show chances are that the House would do little that I had any problem with.


21 posted on 10/26/2005 4:03:55 PM PDT by thoughtomator
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To: aceintx

definitely there is reason to be concerned.

And it is not because of the Miers "betrayal." It is because conservatives have no faith and the rest of the political environment is slipping against us.

People are just getting tired of Iraq etc. That is an environment primed for change, and that means Democrats win next year.


22 posted on 10/26/2005 4:04:13 PM PDT by rwfromkansas (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=rwfromkansas)
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To: Jeff Chandler

Those are my feelings, exactly. I had someone from the RNC call me, for a donation ,and I went off on him about the way the Republicans always want to play NICE. He didn't have much of a comeback.

As much as I am losing patience with this whole administration I'll certainly NEVER vote for a Democrat!

First on my agenda would be to can Scott (deer-in-the-headlights) Mc Clellan. I want to scream every time I see him ,lamely try, to defend his bosses. The word that comes to mind is WUSS! You have to admit, Clinton's spokesperson(whose name escapes me) was terrific. A liar but good at what he did.


23 posted on 10/26/2005 4:04:47 PM PDT by surrey
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To: TexasNative2000
The piece itself doesn't mention her, doesn't mention her nomination, and, doesn't mention the uproar which the nomination has caused.

What do you call this?

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.

24 posted on 10/26/2005 4:09:07 PM PDT by jdhljc169
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To: TexasNative2000

My bad - I missed the sentence mentioning her nomination. My apologies.

***

Whoops, now I have to apologize. See what you made me do. :) I just posted the sentence to you.


25 posted on 10/26/2005 4:10:27 PM PDT by jdhljc169
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To: Stellar Dendrite

Ping


26 posted on 10/26/2005 4:11:43 PM PDT by VRWC For Truth (Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.)
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To: aceintx

I would rather have an incompetent on the SC and appear united behind a Republican administration than throw him to the wolves and give the house to the Dems which is what this thoughtless rhetoric is accomplishing. Does anyone really see Roe v Wade ever being overturned? It will NEVER happen, so conservatives need to let go of the lightning rod, which incidentally has been designed and kept burning for division. Let women decide what they want to do with "their own bodies," especially the part where they burn in hell for murder.


27 posted on 10/26/2005 4:18:00 PM PDT by Toespi
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To: Toespi

Wow! Someone who gets it.

In other words, the convervatives are forming a circle and shooting. Brilliant. And I hope the anti-Miers and anti-Bush posters truly get what they deserve.


28 posted on 10/26/2005 4:26:01 PM PDT by BushisTheMan
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To: Toespi
I agree. No matter what the Supreme Court decides with Roe v Wade, abortion in this country won't stop until peoples hearts change. With the morally bankrupt country in which we live now days, that might be quite a long time.
29 posted on 10/26/2005 4:28:26 PM PDT by appleharvey
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To: aceintx

It's almost amusing that the rats have to wait till we eat our own before they can win an eleciton.


30 posted on 10/26/2005 4:31:06 PM PDT by hope (Let no man deceive you!)
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To: VRWC For Truth

We've got to correct these issues in the primaries. We cannot afford to sit out another election, like conservatives did in 1992. We are in a World War, and the enemy is loved by the democRat party.


31 posted on 10/26/2005 4:34:28 PM PDT by gitmo (Thanks, Mel. I needed that.)
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To: rwfromkansas

That is an environment primed for change, and that means Democrats win next year.

You can't run against something with nothing (and Hitlery's gas tax hike is not going to win votes)


32 posted on 10/26/2005 4:36:12 PM PDT by kaktuskid
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To: appleharvey
The tide on abortion will change when the pro-abortionist lose from self-extinction.
33 posted on 10/26/2005 4:36:17 PM PDT by hope (Let no man deceive you!)
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To: wildbill
"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."

Right....

The largest increase in entitlement spending since LBJ,

Support of RINO's like Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey,

COMPLETE and UTTER failure to reform Social Security,

Support for sovereignty surrendering agreements like LOST,

Failure to tell the WTO to pound salt,

Failure to tell the UN to pound salt,

SPENDING like Drunken Democrats......

The apparent failure of the Tax Reform Commission to propose any meaningful change........

NOW the Harriet Miers nomination.......

ALL that and we're still supposed to support these idiots, just because they're our idiots? Right. Slap my back and call me an ideologue.
34 posted on 10/26/2005 4:36:40 PM PDT by Conservative Goddess (Politiae legibus, non leges politiis, adaptandae)
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Comment #35 Removed by Moderator

To: aceintx

Only way the GOP loses the house if if the poed GOP voters stay home

They ain't gonna vote for the dems


36 posted on 10/26/2005 4:41:14 PM PDT by uncbob
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To: uncbob

Republicans are fed up with leaders who have no **lls. I'd rather see them lose and pay the price for wimping out.


37 posted on 10/26/2005 4:43:12 PM PDT by rpellegrini
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To: Jeff Chandler
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.

EXACTLY

He ain't a political fighter

If he was he would have cleared out all the Clinton left overs who have done nothing but screw him
Sandy Berger wouldn't have gotten a wrist slap
Teddy wouldn't have gotten popcorn
He would have DEMANDED something be done about the forged National Guard Memo

ETC ETC ETC
38 posted on 10/26/2005 4:44:39 PM PDT by uncbob
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To: wildbill
And you're blaming conservatives because those who are Republicans, are no longer able to trick conservatives into voting like robots again and again for anything as long as it has an (R) after its name? ROFLOL

In the last 10+ yrs., conservatives have lost ground while Republicans have gained ground.

39 posted on 10/26/2005 4:44:53 PM PDT by penowa
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To: wolf24

What has the GOP been ABLE to accomplish with the dark-hearted dem beasts filibustering, complaining about the war, delaying appointments, conspiring with media, and most of all still getting even over the Clinton impeachment trial. They are doing this precisely to make Bush appear incompetent.


40 posted on 10/26/2005 4:46:04 PM PDT by Toespi
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