Posted on 03/19/2006 9:21:33 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
The authority of the Bush Administration is falling apart - in its heartland.
With almost three years of George Bush's presidency to go, most Republicans in Congress have one political goal before the mid-term congressional elections in November: desert him as fast as they can.
The discipline of the first Bush Administration is gone. The Republican-dominated, rubber-stamp Congress is no more. Every day, another Republican member of Congress declares that Bush is a great guy, that they love him dearly, but that he has lost the plot.
Sack people they say. One day it's Donald Rumsfeld. The next day it's Dick Cheney. A day later it's the whole White House staff. Do something, Mr President, they say. And by the way, they say, we love you dearly, but most of your policies stink.
Come to think of it, it's all of them, from immigration where they reckon Bush wants to flood the country with illegal immigrants from Mexico, to the Medicare prescription drug plan for America's seniors that is out of control in terms of its cost and which is so complicated that elderly Americans can be seen weeping at pharmacy counters across the country.
No opportunity by Republicans to criticise Bush - with a heavy heart of course - is missed. When commercial radio shock-jocks suddenly discovered that the Bush Administration had approved the takeover of six American ports by a Dubai company - by Arabs! - the Republican leaders in Congress were in danger of causing each other injury as they made the dash for the TV cameras and microphones to say, in essence, that Bush had lost his marbles.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are more or less all over the place on more or less every issue, except the Arab takeover of those American ports where their outrage was outrageous and, frankly, racist. The Congress of the world's sole superpower appears to be an undisciplined rabble.
On the key issues that Americans are really worried about - and Iraq is overwhelmingly the most important one - neither Republicans nor Democrats in Congress have a clue what to do.
Neither does Bush, who increasingly looks and sounds as if he is weighed down by the relentless bad news from Iraq and the daily crises and political missteps that have plagued his second term.
It was in this political environment that the Republican Party's Southern Leadership Conference met last week in Memphis. The highlight of the two-day conference was a straw poll of the 2000 or so Republican Party activists and supporters of the leading candidates for the party's 2008 presidential nomination.
The one candidate who wasn't in Memphis and was not part of the poll was former New York City mayor Rudi Giuliani who, in poll after poll, is far and away the people's choice - that includes Republicans - for the Republican Party's 2008 nomination.
Most political analysts seem to agree that Giuliani represents the Republican Party's best hope of winning in 2008, but they also agree that he has a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination.
This is not because he is seen as wishy-washy on the war in Iraq, the war on terror or even on the need to cut government spending programs, including welfare.
He's not. Indeed, in some ways, he's a more orthodox conservative than Bush. But Giuliani is pro-choice on abortion, which for many conservative Republicans means he's in favour of murder and therefore unfit to be president. And he's "soft on gay marriage".
For the Republican Party's social conservative base, those people who turned out in great numbers in 2004 to give Bush a clear if narrow victory, "values issues" are those that energise them.
That's why at that Republican conference in Memphis, Iraq was hardly mentioned while abortion and the moral threats posed by Hollywood and gay marriage were discussed endlessly.
If no pro-abortion politician has any hope of winning the Republican Party's 2008 nomination, no anti-abortion politician, so the conventional political wisdom goes, has any hope of being the Democratic candidate. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is the mirror image of the Republican Party's social conservatives.
The culture wars in America are real and alive and remain potent politically. The culture wars have pushed the Republicans to the right and the Democrats to the left, which means neither party has a substantial moderate wing.
On many issues, neither party has the support of the majority of Americans. On abortion for instance, a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in many - but not all - cases.
A number of conservative states are planning abortion laws that would make abortion illegal no matter what the circumstances, including rape and incest and a serious risk to the woman's health.
By next year, when the Supreme Court comes to consider constitutional challenges to these laws, abortion will be a major political issue. And not because it is a vote-decider for most Americans, but because it energises the bases of both parties. The party that gets the vote out is the party that wins.
So not only is Congress a rabble, not only are Republicans running away from Bush as fast as they can, not only do the Democrats seem a lot like the Labor Party, but it is a real possibility that both the November elections and the 2008 presidential election could be decided on "values issues" that don't matter a hill of beans to many Americans.
Michael Gawenda is United States correspondent.
Where's the barf alert?
The lie that just keeps on giving.
He dumped his wife for a younger woman.
Ditto...and where are all of these Rep running away to?
phewy and hogwash
I pray that those who read this will seek the Truth above all else (and recognize this ain't it.)
I don't do barf alerts. I outgrew such decades ago.
Maybe so. In Democrat circles, that would be a resumé enhancer, but in GOP circles, not good at all.
Monica Crowley was slobbering all over Mitt Romney yesterday on her radio show (WABC). She interviewed him and frankly, he did sound good, but the fact that he was elected governor of one of the most liberal states in the nation shows that maybe he's a RINO, but I don't know for sure as I'm not too aware of where he stands on important policies.
"And by the way, they say, we love you dearly, but most of your policies stink"
I love W dearly as well, but... ah forget it.
Don't know what that's all about. If anything, the GOP has slid to "moderate." The left keeps getting "lefter" which won't help them win a daggoned thing.
People are missing the point on polls too. Bush may not have high approval ratings, but IMO that doesn't mean they don't like the guy. They simply think he's not tough enough on several very important issues, the primary one likely being illegal immigration/borders.
IMO the polls simply suggest that people are fed up with politics and want some realism in charge.
Any Republican that does this is a dirtbag. And the folking conservatives love to turn in on each other led by George Will. I think it is really stupid and that is why I am independent and will not cast my lot with the Republicans because, with the exception of some incredible leaders the party can produce, like Reagan and George W Bush, the party is loaded with fair weather friends and selfish short-sighted idiots who like to chit-chat among themselves and look at themselves in their shiny shoes. Rough and ready is what we need with nerves of steel. It's not a popularity contest as much as it's a contest of values, freedom, knowing the difference between right and wrong and being able not to blink or having to run to the sauna when the going gets tough.
: ). Isn't that the truth.
BS!
Rudi is a wuss. We need somebody tough to fight the terrorists. And not that nutbag McCain, either.
You look at when things look bad for Bush and his cabinet....who comes out on top????
NOT THE RATS...whether they be pubbie rats or real democRATS, they don't win against this bunch....
So, therefore, if I was betting, I would bet on our President all the time...he's a winner!!!
Michael Gawenda
Yabbut theres a special dynamic at work in Mass, in that
since the Dems own the legislature, the voters wisely
choose governators of the opposite party.
With almost three years of George Bush's presidency to go, most Republicans in Congress have one political goal before the mid-term congressional elections in November: desert him as fast as they can.
Yep. A lot of dirt bags have come out of the closet in the last month.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.