Mutually Reinforcing

There's a nice story in the Washington Post today by staff writers Richard Morin and Claudia Deane about President Bush's ratings and how they may affect the upcoming midterm elections (thanks to Robert George and his blog Ragged Thots for pointing this one out):

"With less than seven months remaining before the midterm elections, Bush's political troubles already appear to be casting a long shadow over them. Barely a third of registered voters, 35 percent, approve of the way the Republican-led Congress is doing its job -- the lowest level of support in nine years.

The negative judgments about the president and the congressional majority reflect the breadth of the GOP's difficulties and suggest that the problems of each may be mutually reinforcing. Although the numbers do not represent a precipitous decline over recent surveys, the fact that they have stayed at low levels over recent months indicates that the GOP is confronting some fundamental obstacles with public opinion rather than a patch of bad luck.

A majority of registered voters, 55 percent, say they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate in their House district, while 40 percent support the Republican candidate. That is the largest share of the electorate favoring Democrats in Post-ABC polls since the mid-1980s."

There's even more worrisome news for the Republicans:

"As Bush and the Republicans falter, Democrats have emerged as the party most Americans trust to deal with such issues as Iraq, the economy and health care. By 49 to 42 percent, Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans to do a better job of handling Iraq.

Democrats also hold a six-percentage-point advantage over the GOP (49 percent to 43 percent) as the party most trusted to handle the economy. Their lead swells to double digits on such as issues as immigration (12 points), prescription drug benefits for the elderly (28 points), health care (32 points) and dealing with corruption in Washington (25 points).

The public divides evenly on only one issue: terrorism, with 46 percent expressing more confidence in the Democrats and 45 percent trusting Republicans on a top voting concern that the GOP counts on dominating."

When the Democrats and Republicans split almost evenly on who the people trust to handle national security and terrorism, the GOP is in serious trouble.

Of course, the Republicans have time to bounce back and do just well enough to hold onto control of Congress -- especially if, as I think they will, this White House decides to invade Iran within a month or two of the election.

But more importantly, it's time for Democrats to step up to the plate and provide an alternative vision for the country -- a dream to replace the nightmare we've been living with for the past five years.

They need to acquire a little discipline (a little, not too much -- I don't want them marching in lockstep like those zombified conservative Republicans -- a Democratic party without a little squabbling and internal dissension wouldn't be the Democratic party), and they need to tell the American people what they can expect besides, as the GOP can only promise, more of the same. And who wants more of this same?

I can picture the TV ads: "Vote for Republicans, and by this time next year we can have 4,000 dead Americans in Iraq!"

Somehow I don't think that's going to play. And the GOP can't do much better than that.

Now in reality I think the paradigm of the last 25 years is going to play out in 2006 (and 2008, for that matter) -- Republicans make a mess, and the Democrats are given the unpleasant task of cleaning it up. That's what Clinton had to do with the fiscal pig sty that Reagan and Bush left behind and because of the voting public's inability to learn the lessons of those years, we'll probably have to do it all over again with the Bush mess -- only this time it's military as well as economic. A double whammy.

One last tidbit from the Post story:

"Bush's job approval rating has remained below 50 percent for nearly a year. Perhaps more ominous for the president, 47 percent in the latest poll say they "strongly" disapprove of Bush's handling of the presidency -- more than double the 20 percent who strongly approve. It marked the second straight month that the proportion of Americans intensely critical of the president was larger than his overall job approval rating. In comparison, the percentage who strongly disapproved of President Bill Clinton on that measure never exceeded 33 percent in Post-ABC News polls."

And keep in mind, Clinton was impeached. With better poll numbers than Bush has now.

Tom Moran