The Rothenberg Political Report

Thursday, September 29, 2005

For Republicans, Will It Be United They Stand, Divided They Fall?

By Stuart Rothenberg

While high gas prices, the war in Iraq and political fallout from Hurricane Katrina have taken their toll on President Bush’s job approval ratings, Republican voters remain loyal to their commander in chief.

But that could change unless Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue can agree on an agenda than unites and energizes the party going into next year’s elections. So far, the signs are not good.

The president’s sinking job approval ratings - now between 40 percent and 45 percent in most polls - do not reflect an across-the-board deterioration in his poll numbers.

Democrats always have disliked Bush, and they continue to give him horrible job ratings, including a 12 percent approval rating in a Sept. 8-11 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Bush’s worsening job ratings are due almost entirely to his growing weakness among independent voters. The same poll showed that just 31 percent of independents approved of the president’s performance, while two-thirds of those responding disapproved.

Republicans, on the other hand, remain remarkably loyal to Bush, considering the rash of bad news that has battered him and his presidency. In that Gallup survey, 85 percent of Republicans still approved of Bush’s performance, a relatively small drop in support in the past year.

Exit polling last November showed Bush winning the votes of 93 percent of Republicans, up from his 91 percent showing among Republicans in 2000. In contrast, former Sen. Bob Dole (Kan.), the GOP nominee for president in 1996, drew just 80 percent of Republicans that year, according to exit polls.

Republican support is crucial not only to the president, but also to his party when next year’s midterms roll around - less than 14 months from now.

Elections are first and foremost about each party’s base, and a dispirited GOP that stays home next fall could be disastrous for the Republican Party. (The president needs to keep this in mind when he selects his nominee for the Supreme Court’s second vacancy.)

Increasingly, there are signs of internal division within the GOP camp. Sure, Democratic opposition on Capitol Hill and throughout the country remains intense. But there isn’t much the president can do about that.

If the Republican coalition falls apart between now and November 2006, the party’s majorities on Capitol Hill could be threatened, even with the dearth of competitive House districts and the difficulty of constructing a Democratic Senate takeover scenario.

Fourteen months from the midterm elections, the GOP lacks the kind of uniting agenda that historically has served the party well. Whether it was taxes or national security, Republicans usually have been able to rally around a set of issues that play well with most or all elements of the party.

True, the party’s business wing hasn’t always been comfortable with Capitol Hill Republicans’ social agenda, and there have been divisions between tax-cutters and deficit hawks. But when those sorts of divisions became serious, the party invariably lost.

Now, Republicans are showing signs of deep division. Whether it’s spending and the deficit or immigration or even Iraq, Capitol Hill Republicans, as well as GOP grass-roots activists around the country, can’t seem to agree on much.

The party’s anti-tax activists are increasingly frustrated by their president’s spending initiatives and his refusal to veto Congressional pork. Its large and vocal anti-immigration forces disapprove of Bush’s immigration proposals. The party is divided over Social Security reform (which even insiders agree is absolutely dead) and over what kinds of tax cuts to pursue. Katrina now has a growing number of Republican legislators openly questioning whether to support making permanent tax cuts that already have been enacted.

While Republicans have acted like loyal soldiers for most of the president’s five years in office, they are now sounding mutinous. And as the midterms approach and Bush’s job ratings appear to be an albatross around the party’s neck, GOP officeholders are likely to look for high-profile issues on which to break from Bush, including immigration.

This isn’t only a problem for the president. It’s also a headache for his party. A divided GOP is likely to look increasingly inept, and it also is likely to make the president look ineffectual.

If the party can’t find a way to mobilize all of its elements, weak GOP turnout could produce a midterm electorate that will be more liberal and Democratic than the one that turned out to re-elect Bush.

I’m not suggesting that Democrats have a positive message or agenda of their own that will appeal to the American people. They are recycling the same tired rhetoric that they’ve used - unsuccessfully - for the past couple of decades. But they can count on Democratic animus toward the president to turn out voters next year.

It’s up to Republican Party strategists to try to figure out a couple of issues that will both distinguish the GOP from the Democratic Party and energize and unite Republicans.

Until that happens, 2006 will look ominous for GOP candidates.

For the moment at least, Republicans have met the enemy, and it is them.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on September 26, 2005. Copyright 2005 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Kerry’s Attacks on Bush May Prove to Be a Two-Edged Sword

By Stuart Rothenberg

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (D) came out swinging recently against President Bush, but it’s unclear whether he’s simply still fighting the last war - the ’04 presidential campaign - or positioning himself for 2008.

Minutes after Bush finished his Sept. 15 address to the nation promising action to help the people of the Gulf Coast, Kerry distributed a terse, five-sentence reaction that began, "Leadership isn’t about a speech or a toll-free number. Leadership is about getting the job done."

Unlike Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), whose reaction at least complimented the president for acknowledging "where our government failed in the rescue effort" and talked about "Americans everywhere ... coming together," Kerry sounded embittered and contemptuous, and almost as if his press release was written even before Bush delivered his remarks.

A few days later, speaking at Brown University, Kerry lambasted the Bush administration’s "pattern of incompetence and negligence" and blamed it for "a truly systematic effort to distort and disable the people’s government."

The next day, a report in the Providence Journal said the Senator "intends to become more partisan and speak out more forcefully against the Bush administration as the 2006 midterm election cycle begins in earnest."

What’s Kerry up to with his attacks? Has he decided to try to become the point man for the MoveOn.org crowd?

Kerry insiders dismiss the suggestion that he is "moving left" to carry the banner of his party’s liberal wing. They note, quite rightly, that he was never the preferred candidate of the party’s bomb-throwers. But they don’t doubt that he is trying to send a message about who he is.

The Massachusetts Senator took plenty of criticism following his 2004 White House loss, including complaints from some Democrats that he failed to hit back quickly when attacked by Republicans and that he allowed himself to be branded as a flip-flopper by the Bush campaign.

In coming out swinging on issues from health care to Iraq, Kerry hopes to show he’s a fighter who has and will continue to take on the president. And by returning to traditional Democratic themes - and to topics that he addressed before and during his unsuccessful presidential bid - Kerry hopes to remind onlookers that he’s been a consistent advocate for Democratic values.

And Kerry isn’t just talking a good game. He’s putting his money where his mouth is.

Since he was defeated in November, Kerry has been pouring money into Democratic causes, ranging from the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ($1 million each) to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic candidates for office and state parties. He’s also using his e-mail list to raise money for candidates.

But if Kerry supporters believe they are building a grass-roots effort and demonstrating a commitment to "retail" politics by bankrolling and raising funds for Democrats, I think they may be in for a rude awakening.

I don’t doubt that Kerry’s party efforts are appreciated. But they aren’t likely to win him much support for ’08.

Kerry won the Iowa caucuses because he was viewed by state Democrats as the "most electable" challenger to Bush, not because he excited them. The Massachusetts Democrat’s defeat last November shot a huge hole through that electability argument, and that hole will be impossible to repair.

If "electability" is a big concern to Democratic caucus attendees and primary voters in 2008, Kerry isn’t likely to be the beneficiary.

The major problem with Kerry’s new, self-described partisan approach is that it sounds as if he is trying to continue the 2004 campaign indefinitely.

While the Senator and his allies may see his confrontational style as a sign of his "combativeness" and proof of his commitment to Democratic issues, the rest of us - or at least many who watch the daily ebb and flow of national politics - see Kerry recycling the same issues and attacks that failed to win him the presidency. That’s not a formula for him to be taken seriously by the media or to be embraced by party activists looking for a winning message.

Kerry also is in something of a bind on Capitol Hill. As some of his more liberal and combative Democratic colleagues ratchet up their criticisms of Bush, Kerry may be forced to do the same. If he doesn’t, he’ll appear weak-kneed or even irrelevant. But if he does, he could appear to be shrill and pandering.

Allies of the Senator shoot back that, unlike his 2004 running mate John Edwards, Kerry doesn’t need to prove he is relevant. He is, they note, a sitting U.S. Senator and one of the leaders of his party.

Well, there is no disputing that Kerry is a Senator, and I suppose he is one of the better known Democrats nationally. But I haven’t heard many Democrats clamoring for another Kerry candidacy, or for the Massachusetts Senator to become the Democrats’ point man to take on Bush.

Kerry certainly has many assets if he opts to run again, including contacts around the country, a powerful e-mail list, deep personal pockets, demonstrated fundraising strength and the experience of running a race for the White House.

But when Kerry bashes Bush, he’ll seem to many like someone who is bitter from his loss and aching to even the score with Republicans next time. Fairly or unfairly, people will see his attacks as personal and as more about his needs than the country’s. That’s not the way to run for president.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on September 22, 2005. Copyright 2005 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Katrina Narrows Barbour’s Options - But Only for Now

By Stuart Rothenberg

Four years ago, a national tragedy transformed a controversial mayor, New York’s Rudy Giuliani (R), into a national celebrity. It also transformed a president with sinking poll ratings, George W. Bush, into a symbol of national unity (at least for a year).

Hurricane Katrina has had a very different effect on at least one politician.

For the past couple of months, friends of Gov. Haley Barbour had been kicking around the idea of a presidential bid by the Mississippi Republican, but the storm has swept away that talk, along with people’s homes and possessions.

"Running for president is not an option in his mind. The only thing on his mind now is rebuilding Mississippi," said Republican consultant Ed Goeas, who polled for Barbour’s 2003 gubernatorial race and was among those considering what a Barbour White House bid might look like.

To some, talk about a Barbour presidential bid always bordered on the absurd. I’ll admit that when I first heard his name mentioned as a possible 2008 hopeful, I dismissed it because of his home state and lobbying résumé.

Although, as one of only 50 sitting governors, he deserved consideration. And if over the past three decades governors from Georgia and Arkansas could occupy the Oval Office, why not someone from Mississippi?

But the hurricane has ended talk about a Barbour presidential run. Yet, it did provide him with an opportunity to show his strengths. Unlike Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D) or Bush, both of whom received generally mediocre to poor reviews for their performances, Barbour has drawn raves.

"I have been a frequent critic of Barbour’s policies, but not now," wrote Clarion-Ledger Editorial Director David Hampton in the Jackson, Miss., newspaper shortly after disaster struck. "Mississippi’s governor is doing an excellent job in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While federal officials have appeared like deer in the headlights, unsure and defensive, Barbour has shown the state effort is working as well as it can."

Clarion-Ledger columnist Sid Salter, also not known for being a Republican shill, wrote last week that Barbour "has exuded more calm, more competence and more command over the absolute bedlam of Hurricane Katrina than other officials."

Then, Salter really heaped praise on the governor.

"What the public hasn’t seen is Barbour at work managing the disaster between press conferences. For this consummate dealmaker schooled in the Byzantine political arts of moving Congress to act and to spend, it is this work that finds the governor most effective in his element.

"Wheeling. Dealing. Selling. Cajoling. Shouting. Laughing. Crying. Working. Getting.

"And in the midst of it all, Barbour has somehow managed to hold onto his sense of humor and his humanity."

Barbour, 57, knows it will take years to clean up the mess left by Katrina and rebuild portions of his state - well into his second term if he runs for re-election in 2007 and voters decide to re-hire him. That would be a challenge the native of Yazoo City ("the gateway to the Mississippi Delta") might not be able to resist.

But, looking at the hurricane another way, Katrina has made the governor a star in his state, and it may well have enhanced Barbour’s appeal nationally, giving him the kind of credentials that a future presidential candidate would love to have.

The governor may have put all thoughts of a 2008 presidential bid out of his mind for now, but that doesn’t mean that sometime in the future, maybe late next year or early in 2007, Barbour might not reconsider his political options.

It’s not as if the GOP field is so intimidating that Barbour couldn’t compete, even with the heavy baggage of his years of lobbying.

GOP frontrunners Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Giuliani lead the pack because of their name recognition and celebrity status. Others in the field have assets and liabilities, and no one is a clear favorite for the nomination.

But Barbour may have other options, as well.

Savvy political observers in Mississippi and the nation’s capital are now whispering that they do not expect Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to seek re-election next year.

Lott has not jumped at friends’ offers to hold fundraisers for his re-election, and the Senator’s own comments in this newspaper Thursday suggest he may well retire to the private sector.

While insiders agree that Lott wants to appoint Rep. Chip Pickering (R) to fill his Senate seat, some Mississippi observers insist that Barbour, who unsuccessfully challenged then-Sen. John Stennis (D) 23 years ago, has always dreamed of being a United States Senator.

Barbour’s Washington background (which includes his Republican National Committee chairmanship) and the glowing reviews of his performance after Katrina make him a potentially strong Senate candidate. True, timing might be a considerable problem for him, since critics would complain that in running for the Senate he would be turning his back on a job that he hadn’t finished. But Barbour could counter that, as a Senator, he could do more to help the state than he could as governor.

Some Barbour allies dismiss the Senate scenario, saying that he loves his current job. But everyone seems to acknowledge that the governor still has political options, and Katrina has enhanced his standing in the state and, potentially, nationally.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on September 19, 2006. Copyright 2005 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.