GOP Tsunami Warning: September Edition

It seems that things are even worse for the Republicans than we thought.

"I think history will show him to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant," said Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth and the mother of three. "He's been an embarrassment."

What makes Ms. Knight's statement so ominous for the GOP?

Barbara Knight is from Macon, Georgia. The heart of the old Confederacy. For a woman from the state that spawned Margaret Mitchell and Scarlett O'Hara to compare a sitting president to that Yankee who beat the South in the Civil War (and who proved a disaster as President) is pretty earth-shattering.

In the AP story from which I'm drawing these quotes, Shannon McCaffrey writes that "A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that three out of five Southern women surveyed said they planned to vote for a Democrat in the midterm elections. With control of the Senate and House in the balance, such a seismic shift could have dire consequences for the GOP."

Three out of five. Think about that for a minute. Three out of five.

A lot of this has to do with the war. The AP piece states that:

"The movement of some Southern women away from the Republican Party tracks with national poll results showing that women have become more disillusioned with the war and were more likely than men to list the conflict as the important issue facing the country.

Nationally, the AP-Ipsos poll found that only 28 percent of women approve of Bush's handling of the war. Bush did better in the South, but only slightly _ just 32 percent of women in the region said they approve of his handling of the war."

Meanwhile Newt Gingrich (remember him?) has his usual Big Ideas about how the GOP can pull out a victory in November.

Sounding remarkably like Captain Queeg discussing the strawberries, Newt claims that:

"Although the conventional wisdom is that Republicans will have a tough time this fall, I believe that we can still win -- but not without substantial changes. [...]

Republican victory in 2006 depends on a return to the American values that twice elected Ronald Reagan and returned the House to a Republican majority with the Contract with America."

Ah, yes. The Contract with America. His one brief shining moment. He does really sound like Captain Queeg, doesn't he?

Unfortunately for Newt, this is not 1994. Like Alice Cooper still putting on the horror-flick makeup even though he's a senior citizen and looks ridiculous in it, Newtie hasn't figured out that his glory days have passed him by a long, long, long time ago.

I think that, instead of doing his usual bloviating, old Newtie should do a little listening to the women in his home state. He might learn something.

From the AP piece:

"Teresa Cranford, 39, also of Macon, said her support for Bush was lukewarm in 2004, but she ultimately voted for him so he could finish the job in Iraq. As the death toll has risen, so has her discomfort.

"I'm a mother and that makes me think differently about it," Cranford said.

Lynn Hamilton, 44, said she still supports Bush even though her backing for the ongoing war has waned.

"As a mother you worry, 'Am I going to lose my baby boy?'" said the Gray, Ga., resident. "A mother's view about war is often going to be a lot different than dad's is."

Neither Cranford nor Hamilton has decided how they plan to vote in the midterm elections, although neither ruled out voting for a Democrat.

"I'm not a straight party-line Republican anymore," Cranford said."

The question these statements (and others like them) bring up is a serious one: this is going to be a one-time thing, or might this be the beginning of a serious realignment of Southern women away from the GOP?

Because if it is, then the Republicans have a far more serious problem than just one midterm election -- no matter what Newtie thinks.

Tom Moran