Posted on 09/29/2007 4:27:18 PM PDT by CheyennePress
WASHINGTON - It is gallows humor time for Republicans in Congress, where one lawmaker jokes that "there's talk about us going the way of the Whigs," the 19th century political party long extinct.
"That's not going to happen," Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., hastens to add, although a little more than a year before the 2008 election, the major leading political indicators still point downward for a party abruptly turned out of power in 2006.
Fundraising for Republican campaign organizations lags. That is strikingly so in the House, where the party committee spent more than it raised in each of the past two months, reported only $1.6 million in the bank at the end of August and a debt of nearly $4 million.
Democrats reported $22.1 million in the bank and a debt of slightly more than $3 million.
Candidate recruitment has been uneven, particularly in the Senate, where Republicans must defend 22 of the 34 seats on the ballot next year. Democrats boast top-tier challengers for GOP-held seats in Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine, Minnesota and Oregon.
Republicans have yet to put forward a prominent challenger for any Democratic-held seat, although an announcement is expected soon in Louisiana.
Additionally, nine Republicans in the House and three in the Senate have announced plans to retire. Some of those leaving are in midcareer, when a departure often signals pessimism about the prospects for regaining the majority. Democratic retirements total two to date — both are House members who are running for the Senate.
"The Democrats will continue to be the majority party in the House and Senate and Hillary Clinton will make history by being the first woman president" in 2008, predicts Rep. Ray LaHood, one of three Illinois Republicans to announce his retirement so far.
What makes LaHood's prediction stand out is his willingness to say it publicly.
Numerous other Republican lawmakers, aides and strategists said Democrats appear headed for two more years in power in Congress, but they declined to say so on the record.
Despite their difficulties, Republicans are not deep in the minority. A switch of 16 seats would give them control of the House next year; a change of one or two seats could deliver the Senate.
Despite the GOP's worst defeat since the Watergate era of the 1970s, Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said recently, "We have more seats than Ronald Reagan had on his best day."
He added that Republicans have a better chance of winning a House majority in 2008 than they do of capturing the Senate or the White House. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the GOP senatorial committee, offered no response.
But Cole's job performance as head of the House GOP political arm is under internal challenge. In a recent private leadership meeting, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, sought the dismissal of the group's two top campaign aides, saying the committee lacked aggressiveness.
Cole refused and said he would quit first before firing the staff. Boehner, the party leader, backed down, at least temporarily, but may yet seek to install a senior aide at the committee. The officials who discussed the events did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.
After a long turn in power in Congress, LaHood and other Republicans say the change in fortunes is partly the result of historical cycles. "The American people like a change," he said.
At the same time, President Bush's approval is stuck in the mid-30s and the Iraq war remains unpopular with the public.
Nor have the ethics woes that plagued the party in last year's elections abated. Corruption investigations swirl around Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and California Rep. John Doolittle. To the particular distress of party leaders, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct last summer in an airport men's room sex sting operation and has yet to make good on an earlier pledge to resign.
Stevens and Doolittle deny all wrongdoing, as does Craig, who has asked a Minnesota judge to permit him to withdraw his guilty plea.
Polls, too, chart the decline of the Republicans.
A recent Gallup poll reported that 59 percent of those surveyed have an unfavorable impression of the Republican Party. By a margin of 47-42 percent, they said Democrats will do a better job of protecting against terrorism and military threats. Asked which party would better maintain prosperity, the majority preferred the Democrats, 54-34.
Despite their woes, numerous Republicans say they may have weathered the worst of it.
The race for the 2008 presidential nomination may sort itself out as early as February, they say, giving the party a new face months before the elections.
"Whoever it is, it won't be George W. Bush," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind. "I deeply admire the president, but many Americans have a somewhat unmovable impression of the president at this point," he added.
Others predict Clinton will win her party's nomination for the White House and say her polarizing effect on the voters will benefit GOP candidates in swing areas currently held by Democrats.
"A Clinton candidacy would help energize Republicans to go out and vote in down-ballot races," said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster working in House and Senate campaigns. "It will help the Republican case for divided government."
Pence also said the military situation in Iraq is improving, and that a looming spending struggle between Bush and the Democrats should help reassure conservative voters who have become disaffected.
But efforts to draw clear distinctions with the Democrats can cut both ways.
Senate Republicans from New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon and Minnesota, who face particularly tough races in 2008, all voted in recent days for a children's health care bill that Bush has pledged to veto.
"I just do not understand his decision, and I think it would be terrible," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. She faces a challenge from Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine.
Just goes to show how the MSM can manipulate the information. The President never wanted to deny poor children healthcare. He didn't want the Democrats to ADD children to the plan who were well ABOVE the poverty level. The Democrats simply wanted to create a middle class entitlement.
I would like to see these polls split between men and women, not between parties. That will tell you the real story. The real story is the conversation going on between Democrats and women beyond the “emotional” hearing of the men in this country, even capturing the interest of a certain amount of “safe conservative” women!
That is what you are seeing in a lot of these “close” elections, the women(even “conservative” women who would never tell there husbands how they voted...they might get “upset”) are tipping the balance in favor of the Democrats.
Women are nesters and they want health care for the children and they want them educated. They don’t want to see husbands, children, boy-friends killed in any war. These issues go to the heart of how women are constructed and no amount of logic or intelligent discourse will get many of them to change their minds, they’ll just smile and nod at you, while attempting to change the subject.
LOL-—thanks I needed that.
I am sorry, but since you started with a stupid and incorrect statement like, there is no need to debate with you anymore.
A cannibal was walking through the jungle and came upon a restaurant operated by a fellow cannibal.
Feeling somewhat hungry, he sat down and looked over the menu:
+ Tourist: $5
+ Broiled Missionary: $10.00
+ Fried Explorer: $15.00
+ Baked Democrat or Grilled Republican: $100.00
The cannibal called the waiter over and asked, ‘Why such a price difference for the politicians?’
The cook replied, “Have you ever tried to clean one? They’re so full of crap, it takes all morning.”
Ah, so what? That is probably more than Clinton’s ratings at the end of his term and I do not see the 11% approval rating for congress anywhere. Anyone?
<>Bush chose the wrong item to pick a fight with the Democrats over. Denying poor children of healthcare
No he did not. That could be another huge boondoggle that will never get smaller.
The government needs to get out of providing or subsidizing health care.
Kids have been doing fine without it for the last 40,000 years.
All that being said, the plain fact and the main dynamic that I see has not changed since the Anyone but Bush stickers first appeared.
That mentality has morphed into anyone but the GOP, no matter how foul, stupid, or corrupt.
We look to lose many seats in the senate and I predict a 57 seat majority for the dems at the end of 08.
I also put this squarely on the shoulders of the amnesty at any cost and be damned to the American voter mentality that pervaded the higher echelons of the present day GOP.
Trent Lott is a perfect example, along with Bush’s snotty remark; “see you at the signing.”
This arrogance has alienated the base and I see dire times ahead indeed for we conservatives and true patriots.
“MORON CONSERVATIVES,” as you put it, know that RINOs are going to get what they vote for = Democrats in charge for a long, long time. The Republican party is begging to go the way of the Whigs by becoming the “me too Democrats.”
Hey, let’s up the ante, if Hillary bids $5,000 for a baby in every bassinet, let’s enter the bidding at $5,500. We should also trot out a $115 Billion health care program, bigger than her $110 billion, raise you $5.
The government is going to pay for all free stuff, so the one I want is free legal care. Why not, it’s free, and it surly is needed.
Let’s roll.
When the Republican Party returns to what it was meant to be, perhaps it can woo it’s huge former Conservative base back. They lost us when they broke with their Contract With America, and the party has been losing steam ever since. The wimpy Republicans who were voted out of office in 2004 need not reapply.
I, for one, will not send one dime to the Rockefeller Republicans now in charge of the White House and the Republican Party. I do, however, contribute generously to Conservative candidates with consistent Conservative records.
If the Conservatives cannot recapture the control of the GOP, or at least gain healthy and fair recognition, I think that it is time for traditional Conservatives to form a new party.
The key for the Democrats is to work the words “children” and “health care” into the title of any legislation they hope to pass, regardless of the bill’s actual subject or content.
And there you have it, the little gem in the article that is the most basic truth. State parties have expended so much effort to not groom up the next generation of candidates that the pantry is bare. Thou must roll over to the RINO incumbent and not put in a realistic primary competition for the sake of 'party unity.'
Dude, please read on. He’s being really, really sarcastic. It’s kinda funny, too.
>>>By a margin of 47-42 percent, they said Democrats will do a better job of protecting against terrorism and military threats.<<<
If you look at the survey, the survey was performed over the weekend of September 14-16, and interviewed “adults” 18 and over. There was no delineation or mention of whether the sample size included registered, likely, or even voters.
If you are being sarcastic then I apologize for misunderstanding you.
perception is reality.
and tv is democrap controlled.
While I agree the poll is not quite accurate, I will contend with you on this point. The Republicans have lost credibility on this issue for failing outright to protect the border. In fact, their promotion of open border policies flies in the face of the security they presume to uphold.
I am as hard-right as they come, and even I am not confident that we have been made safe from attack precisely because the border remains unguarded.
Furthermore, attempts to trump sovereignty for reasons of free trade are probably more damaging in the long run than the short-run security problems we are forced to suffer.
Face it. The Repubs have sold their soul on the issue of security and have left us wide open to attack, their only motive being big-business free trade influences trumping that safety and sovereignty.
the only remedy is for the RINOs to step down and turn over the reigns of power to the conservative wing or suffer turning them over to the Liberal Democrats in the election.
Good God! That's one of the most idiotic posts in recent memory. MOST AMERICANS find the NY Times a leftist/RAT shill mouthpiece. That's why they are circling the drain.
That is exactly TRUE. We have only to agree upon what the term "conservative" means. It is my opinion that we must dig deep into the hard right for the nominee, as only a rock-ribbed undeniable conservative will energize the base. it is a matter of trust, and the RINO wing has proved itself to be without scruples.
That may be true, but considering the current rhetoric about the war, one must be careful of a "wag the dog" scenario.
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