Posted on 09/07/2006 12:25:35 PM PDT by NYC Republican
The gallows mood among Republicans -- driven by polls, political consultants and an incessant media drumbeat about voters' unhappiness - is epidemic. Inside the beltway the question is not whether the Republicans will lose but by how much. The Democrats are celebrating prematurely, their amen chorus among the media debating gleefully what the Dems will do first after they take control of the House. But there are a lot of "what ifs" between the current wisdom of September and the morning of November 8th.
It may be that the Republicans get whacked in sixty-one days, but if momentum shifts mean anything, the past few weeks haven't been kind to the Dems. The Israeli war against Hizballah terrorists in Lebanon drove home the reality of the war to every American. But the Ned Lamont moment energized the Republicans' base, and combined with the arrests of the London plotters measurably increased Republican energy. There was no good news for the Dems.
About two weeks ago, a Gallup poll showed that the Dems' lead (more than a dozen points) in national polls had disappeared. This was a poll of 1,000 adults, not likely voters. If only likely voters had been polled, the Dem advantage would probably have morphed into a small Republican lead. This, despite bad news from Iraq, high gasoline prices and voter disgust with Congress. Why? Because world and national news is trumping small issues the Dems want to campaign on.
On Monday, a Washington Post front-page story referred to a "...strategist who has worked as part of Bush's campaign team," who "...believes there is a 9-in-10 chance Republicans will lose their 12-year-old House majority." The same day, a New York Times front-page story said, "The strategic imperative facing the Republicans, many analysts say, is clear: transform each competitive race from a national referendum on Mr. Bush and one-party Republican rule into a choice between two individuals -- and define the Democratic challengers as unacceptable." But what happens if Congressional Republicans decide to do the opposite? What if they read the Gallup poll and decided to nationalize the election? What if they started firing consultants and hiring historians?
Churchill said the keys to statesmanship are in history. So are the keys to this election. They're in 1980, 1986 and 1988, in the speeches and campaigns of Ronald Reagan.
In 1986, Reagan - in the same stage of his presidency as Bush is today -- wanted to nationalize the mid-term election, making Democrats the issue. The Republicans' big buck consultants - whose track record then was as bad as Bob Shrum's is today - advised against it. The party listened to them and they achieved disaster by small margins: by only a few thousand votes in many states and the GOP lost several key senate seats all because the base didn't turn out.
It was more than Reagan's unflagging cheerfulness that propelled Republicans in 1988. It was his use of "the 'L' word." On the eve of the 1988 Republican convention, Ronald Reagan gave what was probably his best stump speech ever. He said, "It's time to talk issues; to use the dreaded "L'' word; to say the policies of our opposition and the congressional leadership of his party are liberal, liberal, liberal." Democrats are the party of the ACLU. Against liberal elitists in 1980, Republicans managed to knock out some of supposedly unbeatable old Senate's liberal lions such as Frank Church, Birch Bayh and George McGovern. This was the work of NCPAC in their tv ads. What if the Republicans went after some of today's?
What if this year's Senate contest featured an ad with Bob and Liddy Dole talking about how the Senate works? Most people don't realize that senators vote twice: before anyone votes on any bills or nominations, every senator votes for the leadership and the committee chairmen. Will Nebraska's Ben Nelson vote for Patrick Leahy to be chairman of the Judiciary Committee? Will North Dakota's Kent Conrad vote for Carl Levin - who has made a career of opposing missile defense - to be chairman of the Armed Services Committee? Of course they will. But the voters of their states probably don't remember that. What if Republicans remind them?
Democrats want the president to fire Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and replace him with a real tough guy like, maybe, Susan Estrich. Dems can't refute these charges because they happen to be true. Republicans made some good moves, forcing symbolic votes on the flag burning and gay marriage amendments, and the Dems' "cut and run" plan for Iraq. How many Republican candidates will challenge their opponents on those issues in clear and uncompromising terms? Remember, too, that in 2000 Bush's lead had been shrinking in states such as Florida when 60% of Americans bought Gore's claim that he was a moderate. When Gore's liberal credentials were plastered all over the tv screens, Bush recovered his lead in Tennessee, Florida and elsewhere. The Dems are the "L" party, with an elitist bent. What if Republicans didn't let anyone forget that?
Given Republicans' sorry track record on pork-barrel spending, the choice this year isn't as clearly between liberal and conservative, but it is, as Reagan said, between strength and "...international weakness and accommodation, and always, always, always, blame America first." Democrats have spent five years blaming Bush for 9-11, UN absurdities, fading European alliances, Iraq's slow progress and everything else without - once - offering a plan of their own to win the war. "Victory" and "winning" aren't words that pass their lips. And there's reason to believe that the Dems know - despite all their campaign chatter - that they can't win on the war issue.
No, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld didn't call the Dems "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." He didn't even refer to them when warning against the 1930s-like appeasement that has taken hold in the West. But the Dems' hair-trigger overreaction to his remarks about appeasement were worthy of a teenage girl on prom night whose dad says, "sweetie, your hair isn't quite right." The screams and hysterics bespeak a deep-seated concern. I'm betting that the Democrats have some non-public polls that show voters aren't buying their "we'll win and they can't" war talk. Thanks to Murtha, Kerry, Durbin and the whole sorry lot, they've proven that they still are what they have been since 1972: the party of retreat and defeat. Their new Labor Day plan for Iraq amounts to withdrawal and booting Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Some plan.
The Dems will continue to fumble and stumble because their Congressional campaign chairman, Rahm Emmanuel, is a smart ideologue but no genius. He keeps making the wrong calls, like attempting to make Republican corruption the main issue of the year, failing when Democratic corruption overwhelmed the story line. His anti-Rumsfeld obsession has put the Democrats on the defensive for weeks, with even the most liberal media forced to quote Rumsfeld's speech before or alongside the Dems' ritual denials that they are the appeasers Rumsfeld described.
Emmanuel - and the 527 Media - are leading the charge into the fall. Republicans need to take the offensive because their candidates can afford to support their national party. Democrats can't. Will Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill say she's in favor of gay marriage and will filibuster judges who aren't pro-abortion? Will Washington's Maria Cantwell vote again for amnesty for illegal aliens? Of course she will.
Republican consultants, always looking to the next election, will counsel against taking on the political activist 527 Media. But what the consultants resist is, in this case, what the voters want most. So many of those voters who seem angry with the president really aren't. They're angry with him for not taking on the media that leaks our nation's most valuable secrets, contrives stories and invents "facts," and chuckles condescendingly about the values we hold dear.
It could all come down to what may have been Reagan's greatest campaign moment. In one 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, in response to another Carter distortion of his record, Reagan said, "Well, there you go again." What if it was repeated to the Dems - and the 527 Media -- a few hundred times between now and November 7? We may never know. But we do know one thing: Ronald Reagan wouldn't be slouching toward November.
Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration. He is a contributing editor to The American Spectator and author of Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States (with Edward Timperlake, Regnery 2006) and Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think (Regnery 2004). © 2000-2006 RealClearPolitics.com All Rights Reserved
The truth is Reagan convinced the voters that it was OK to vote for a Democrat in the house but they should vote for a Republican for President.
What the author admits is REAGAN as PRESIDENT could not even convince the leaders of his own party to follow him. If he could not convince Republicans, how could he even hope to convince Moderates and Democrats.
Reagan was only concerned about Reagan. Bush was willing to sacrifice a huge victory for himself to win the House and Senate.
The advice of this Author is to follow a man who failed to win the HOUSE 4 out of 4 times. Is that STUPID OR WHAT???
Liberals think that everyone agrees with them, and if they don't, they are "simpletons".
That is why they think it an anomaly when they lose.
As Rush says, when a liberal loses, it is because of fraud, or this or that and the other, but never because their wacky ideas are rejected.
Nice post!
Thanks
That leaves the House GOP as the only bunch preserving our national soveriegnty. Fortunately, this is a potentially overwhelming issue in favor of the Republicans. Unfortunately, we're not hearing much about it. I wonder why.
It's generally forgotten that Dubya steered campaign money to keeping the House and Senate in GOP hands at his own expense. If he kept those funds for himself, he'd have won in a true landslide, but he realized that it was meaningless if the RATS took the House and/or Senate.
If the GOP had their 72 hour GOTV program then, they might have saved some of these seats from defeat. Actually, we could have kept all but Florida:
1. Hawkins- Lost 55%-45% (Let's face it, this one was gone)
2. Abdnor- Lost 52%-48%
3. Andrews- Lost 50%-49%
4. Mattingly- Lost 51%-49%
5. Denton- Lost by only 6,823 votes.
6. Broyhill- Lost 52%-48%
7. Slate Gorton- Lost 51%-49%
Not to forget them, but I'm more focused on what's happening this year. LS and I have both been predicting small gains for the GOP in both the House and Senate for months. Hannity and Rush(but especially Sean) are performing yeoman's service in having Novack and other doom-and-gloomers on predicting that Pelosi will be the next Speaker and Her Heinousness will be Senate Majority Leader. This only helps motivate the GOP base to get out there and vote. The Gallup poll shows that the inevitability of the RATS retaking Congress is a bunch of baloney.
The MSM and RATS can claim that it's inevitable all they want, but their campaign of cut-and-run and class warfare will backfire just like it did in 2002 and 2004. Bottom line, the GOP gains 4-5 seats in the House(including Diana Irey knocking off Jack Murtha), and 1-2 in the Senate.
I have started, as of today, adding to the bottom of my emails a short clip that says, "When you vote ask yourself if the person you are voting for makes it easier for the terrorist or for the US to catch them." So far I have gotten a couple of nasty responses..all from democrats. Thin skin lot aren't they.
bttt
Yes that's stupid...your premise and question, that is.
President Reagon was able to convince the Congress to cut taxes and rebuild our military. The media critiqued everything there was to critique about President Reagon so the stupid habitual losing Republican congressional candidates chose to distance themselves from him...and they succeeded magnificantly, they went home while he was in the White House.
Todays media tell us that Republican candidates are distancing themselves from President Bush...they do this at their on peril.
Actually the Democrat Congress started increasing Defense spending in the last budget submitted by Carter the Carter administration. Carter had cut the military to where even Carter felt it left our nation unsafe.
When Reagan took office the effective federal tax rate was 22.1. When he left office the effective federal tax rate was 21.8. The net rate reduction under Reagan was 3 tenths of one percent.
Wheee...
Perhaps the press had Reagan's fellow Republicans crying so bad they could not read his job approval numbers.
Or perhaps you don't know what you are talking about.
The issue was never mentioned by Babbin, which is further proof of how out of touch GOP consultants are.
What are you talking about? Republican Citizens and others voted for him twice. I was talking about Republican candidates in '86 running away from him.
When Reagan took office the effective federal tax rate was 22.1. When he left office the effective federal tax rate was 21.8. The net rate reduction under Reagan was 3 tenths of one percent.
Again, I don't know what you are talking about...the maximum tax bracket was 70% when President Reagan took office and 28% when he left.
Later 41 raised it to 33 after he said "read my lips."
When GHWB got kicked out for not keeping his promise, Slick Willie and the Dim congress raised the taxes again...
Where were you?
Are you drunk? President Reagan was elected in 1980 and left in January of 1989. He wasn't working in 2004.
NO they did not. They got the Democratic vote. They were conservative Democrats just like there were and still are liberal Republicans.
And Reagan ran in the industrial north as a Democrat who was still a Democrat in every thing but name. It was just that the Democratic party had changed ... not Reagan. I covered a lot of Reagan speeches in the industrial midwest. He never missed a chance to tell his audience how he had been a Democrat most of his life. He claimed that FDR was his political hero.
The reason he got more than half the union vote in Ohio was his FDR speech and his pitch that his economic policy was identical to the JFK economic policy. It really ticked Teddy Kennedy off every time Reagan claimed to be a Kennedy fan. Over and over I heard him say of his economic policy, "It worked for JFK and it will work for me."
I used to do an imitation of Reagan doing his, I have no love for big corporations act. REagan would say, "When I was just a small boy My Dad was let go by a big corporation on Christmas (SNIFF SNIFF) eve (SNIFF). It was our worst Christmas ever.(sniff) I have no special place in my (sniff) heart for big corporations."
There are lots of reasons for Reagan not to have a Republican house, but the truth is Reagan never lifted a finger to try to elect one.
Bush on the other hand put lots of money and support into electing a Republican house and senate. Reagan at one time had a reputation as a RINO. Ed Meese and Cap Weinburger were discussing how to win the California Governor's primary. They knew Reagan could beat the Demorat but the Republican's were not about to nominate a RINO.
So Cap came up with the idea of having Reagan speak for Goldwater at the Republican convention. When the media saw how good Reagan was they labeled him as the one thing that could ruin his carreer. They labeled him a Goldwater Conservative. It is interesting to note that in his 1980 campaign he never mentioned Goldwater. We reporters had a contest to see who could get Reagan to say Goldwater's name. We were never able to do it. It was always the Senator from Arizona.
After he became president Reagan all but ignored Goldwater. Reagan was nothing like a Goldwater conservative and he was surprised when the media painted him as one.
But one thing for sure he never ever tried to get a Republican house. He was after split ballots and that is what he got.
"Inside the beltway the question is not whether the Republicans will lose but by how much."
I've just returned from spending two weeks with some of "our guys" who live in the beltway. BIG NAMES in conservative politics. I found them to be TOTALLY CLUELESS in their foolish pessimism. One poor fellow actually attempt to tell us that ( in hushed tones ) " I got an E mail from a very good source who said we were going to lose 50 seats!" I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was so frustrating to listen to this poor dumb bastard twist in the beltway wind, I almost wanted to cry with others who recognized what a lazy fraud this guy was. I had NOT done any homework and yet was up on a stage talking rat inspired bull shiite. I wanted to laugh at him but he is a good guy otherwise. The point is we are NOT going to lose seats. We are going to pick up 2 to 5 in the House and probably net + one in the senate. PLEASE don't listen to people who say they "feel this or FEEL that" Feelings are for love songs. FACT ARE FOR PREDICTING.
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