Security Attacks on Bush misfire

Washington Times ^ | 5/26/02 | Donald Lambro

[MJY1288]

Security attacks on Bush misfire
By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

     Democrats, frustrated by President Bush's popularity, are squabbling over their campaign agenda, retreating on some issues and losing support at the party's base five months before the midterm elections.

Top Stories

• Pakistan warned to stop militants
• Takeover Test
• Optimism victor on Bataan
• Bush, Putin disarm with friendly humor

     With the battle for control of Congress turning on relatively few close races for the House and Senate, the Democrats are arguing internally about what they should stand for and searching for issues to use against Mr. Bush and the Republicans in the fall campaigns.
     In a move that some Democrats think was ill-advised, Democratic leaders unleashed a harshly worded attack on the Bush administration, suggesting the president knew more before September 11 than he said he did about the threat of terrorist attacks. But party leaders quickly backed off or toned down their offensive last week when the tactic ran into resistance from the public and a strong counterattack from Republicans.
     Embarrassed, Democratic strategists began criticizing their leadership's decision to attack the administration on what polls showed was its strongest ground, urging them to stick to domestic social-welfare issues and cede national security issues to Mr. Bush.
     "People trust George Bush to deal with this problem," said Democratic strategist Mark Mellman, whose polls show the president getting high marks from voters on his handling of the terrorist threat.
     But in a strongly worded memorandum last week, the Democratic Leadership Council lectured Democratic leaders against retreating on the issue. Pointing out that every poll shows national security and homeland defense at the top of voter concerns, "this is a particularly bad time for Democrats to go brain-dead on security," the DLC said.
     Such a strategy would be "reminiscent of the Democratic 'politics of evasion' of the 1980s," the centrist political organization said in a memo.
     "Today, with Democratic vulnerability on 'toughness to govern' issues including national security, crime and fiscal discipline rapidly re-emerging, it's especially important that Democrats refuse to backslide towards the silly 'issue ownership' mentality that helped keep them in the political wilderness for so many years.
     "It's almost insulting for Democrats to tell security-conscious Americans that what they really need is not better intelligence gathering or a serious homeland security effort, but a prescription drug benefit," the DLC said.
     The DLC also criticized Democratic leaders for being so accusatory in attacking Mr. Bush. "The Watergate language used by some congressional Democrats, suggesting a gleeful partisan effort to assign blame for 9/11, is neither credible nor constructive," the memo said.
     Such questions — what did the president know and when did he know it? — faded away last week, largely because of the strong bipartisan support that Americans give Mr. Bush for his attention to national security since September 11.
     Even Democratic voters, by a margin of 37 percent to 33 percent, preferred the administration's approach to the war on global terrorism to their own party's proposals, according to a Pew Research Center poll.
     A separate series of focus-group polls to test issues for the Democrats showed that "only on terrorism and security do Democrats lose," Democratic strategists James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Robert Shrum wrote in a memo.
     This was not the first time Democratic leaders struck out on an issue that they and the Democratic National Committee saw as a home run in a critical election year. Democrats tried to make issues out of the Enron Corp. bankruptcy and stock scandal, the administration's $1.35 trillion tax cuts, the end of the budget surpluses and the return of deficits. Yet all failed to gain significant political traction.
     Notably, Pew's poll showed substantial unhappiness among Democrats' voter base. Sixty-four percent of Democrats said they approved of the leadership's job performance, and nearly half said they were not doing enough to stand up for working people, minorities and the poor.
     "Of course [these numbers] disturb me. I'd like to see more leadership on the part of the Democrats, but we're starting to see some change," said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, a liberal Democratic advocacy group.
     "We've just come out of a period where it was very hard to criticize the president," Mr. Hickey said. "But now the Democrats are finding their voice. It is going to be on the domestic issues where the elections are going to be decided."
     Mr. Bush's job-approval ratings remain in the high 70s, and the economy is showing increasing signs of bouncing back, so much so that some Democrats say it is no longer a significant issue.
     "The perception that the economy is in good shape is rising, now to 59 percent, up from 51 percent at the end of 2001," the Carville-Greenberg-Shrum memo said. "That is producing an issue shift, away from the economy" and toward health care, education and crime.

[MJY1288]

Ping

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

With the battle for control of Congress turning on relatively few close races for the House and Senate, the Democrats are arguing internally about what they should stand for...

Q: What do the Democrats stand for?

A: Not much.

[Allegra]

The Dems' tactics just keep geting more and more outlandish. They're screeching unprecedented nonsense now. A clear sign of just how desperate they have become.

[Miss Marple]

Another memo from the "Axis of Evil II:" Carville, Begala, and Shrum!!

Interesting that another one of these memos has made it into the press. I wonder if Zell Miller is helping out a bit.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Big surprise. After Sept. 11th people aren't buying into the DemonRat hype anymore and their attempts to politicize what happened are backfiring badly.

So much for the news media theory that integrity and values are dead and that lying, cheating, and stealing are OK because "everybody" (Bubba) is doing it.

[Mo1]

Nice Article ... looks like the Rats are pretty desperate .. who knows what they will sling next

Don't forget .. This is the Party of Bill Clinton

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Q: What do the Democrats stand for?

That has never been important or relevant. The Dems getting the masses to percieve that they stand for something is their only mission. They don't have to live by what they say in public, just make people think they care. Their next priority is to make their useful idiots forget that in previous elections, they promised them everything but delivered nothing.

[Torie]

The purpose of the opposition party is to oppose. That is the parliamentary system. We seem to be heading that way. There is less and less variance between presidential strength in districts and local party strength. That has its plusses and minuses.

[okie01]

Q: What do the Democrats stand for?

A: Not much. Re-election. Period.

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

I saw on Fox News that they were putting all their gun control issues way aside.

How fake they are.

[LarryLied]

Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, a liberal Democratic advocacy group.

Check them out: www.ourfuture.org

They are pushing psychiatric patient David Brock's book, babbling about Enron and crying over " profiteering in the name of patriotism."

That will inspire the troops.

[MJY1288]

It's sure is the party of Bill Clinton, and the DNC chairman he appointed, (Terry McAuliffe), is nothing but a hack, he has nothing to offer but smear tactics that don't work. He would be a much better used car salesman than a DNC chairman

[MJY1288]

Would you please change the title of the thread to "Security Attacks on Bush Backfire"

Thank You

[MJY1288]

LOL, I must be tired, "Security Attacks on Bush misfire"

Sorry :-(

[piasa]

Now that their politicization of 9/11 backfired, the only thing they have elft to do is go for the "everyone does it defense" to save face.

So now there will be a load of seminar callers telling us how "both sides need to quit politicizing 9/11." That way, they can hopefully divert some of the annoyance towards the right by pretending that both sides were just as involved in drumming this up as a political issue.

[piasa]

Oops, that was poorly written. Try this:

That way, they can hopefully divert some of the annoyance at the left's poster boys onto the right by pretending that both sides were just as involved in drumming this up as a political issue.

[Timesink]

But in a strongly worded memorandum last week, the Democratic Leadership Council lectured Democratic leaders against retreating on the issue. Pointing out that every poll shows national security and homeland defense at the top of voter concerns, "this is a particularly bad time for Democrats to go brain-dead on security," the DLC said.

In other words, the only thing they can do is publicly support the president. Which means we win either way. Bwa-ha-haa!

[Timesink]

A separate series of focus-group polls to test issues for the Democrats showed that "only on terrorism and security do Democrats lose," Democratic strategists James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Robert Shrum wrote in a memo.

Which, of course, is completely different from the results of every PUBLICLY-AVAILABLE poll. Add all the Special Sauce you want, guys. It won't make it true.

[Admin Moderator]

fixed.

thanks,
admin moderator.