Karl Rove and His Minions Have Run Out of Issues to Campaign On
by Pamela LeaveyThe Republican party is bankrupt on ideas. They have nothing left to campaign on in the ‘06 mid-terms, because simply put, the public isn’t buying what they have to sell. Just look at the the recent NY Times/CBS poll that I posted here last night. Harold Meyerson writes in the Washington Post, “Karl Rove and his minions have plumb run out of issues to campaign on.”
They can’t run on the war. They can’t run on the economy, where the positive numbers on growth are offset by the largely stagnant numbers on median incomes and the public’s growing dread of outsourcing. Immigration may play in various congressional districts, but it’s too dicey an issue to nationalize. Even social conservatives may be growing weary of outlawing gay marriage every other November. Nobody’s buying the ownership society. Competence? Ethics? You kidding?
The Republicans’ problem is not simply their inability to run their government and wage their war of choice, it is also their bankruptcy of ideas. On taxes, the Republican legislative leaders’ top priorities are to make permanent the tax cut on investment income and to repeal the estate tax — economics, as ever, for our wealthiest 1 percent. (This at a time when the entire theory of trickle-down has been negated by the propensity of U.S. corporations to use their shareholders’ investments to expand abroad rather than at home.) On energy, the notions of tougher fuel economy standards and mandating a shift to renewable energy sources are so alien to the Republicans’ DNA that they come forth with such proposals as Bill Frist’s $100 rebate, the most short-lived legislative initiative in recent memory.
Myerson cites the recent USA Today/Gallup Poll, saying “There’s no concealing the Republican collapse.”
Numbers can change, of course, but it’s hard to see what the Republicans can do to reverse this tsunami. They can mount an October surprise attack on Iran, but that would require someone making a convincing public case that Iran poses an imminent threat to us and that preemptive war is the only solution. And who, in the wake of the deceptions with which they justified their war in Iraq, has the credibility to do that? Bush? Cheney? Rumsfeld? These guys have turned themselves into Lucy holding the football, while the American people no longer afford them a Charlie Brown benefit of the doubt.
Myerson’s view is that Rove’s push to rally the base (whatever is left of the base that is), “has its shortcomings.”
It’s not clear how many independents, or even conservatives, will warm to a campaign that focuses on forestalling congressional oversight — not with gas prices soaring and the American military bogged down in a war with an increasingly undefinable mission. Moreover, the Democrats are now, finally, having some success at defining themselves.
Noting the “recent spate of interviews” from Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi, Myerson says that Pelosi has “emphasized her party’s fast-forward version of its first Hundred Days in power — in this case, what the Democrats would do in their first week running Congress.”
They would raise the minimum wage for the first time since 1997. They would repeal the section of the Medicare drug plan that forbids the government from negotiating lower prices with the drug industry. They would fully implement the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, and they would restore the congressional rule, suspended by Republicans, requiring that all new programs be paid for by a specific new spending source or offset by a commensurate cut in another program.
Now that Pelosi has begun to “outline the Democrats’ own Contract With America” it doesn’t bode well for the Republican’s says Myerson, because the Democrat’s plan “ain’t bad — and for Republicans, that ain’t good.”
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Republicans will try to run on wedge issues, but this might not work this time.
For example, polling is showing that Republicans are not getting the support they hoped for their “Defense of Marriage” ammendment:
http://www.civilrights.org/issues/glbt/details.cfm?id=43081
Polling recently conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associations shows the Federal Marriage Amendment, scheduled for a Senate vote the week of June 5, ranks dead last for voters on a list of priorities on which they want Congress focusing and that voters have strong concerns about changing the Constitution. Commissioned by the Human Rights Campaign, the polling also shows strong opposition to changing the Constitution among independent, senior and Catholic voters.
“Voters want Congress focused on fixing America’s challenges, not creating more,” said Human Rights Campaign Political Director Samantha Smoot. “The numbers show that Americans want Congress working on affordable health care, the ongoing war in Iraq and passing new ethics and lobbying laws, not changing the Constitution. Senators and Representatives should take these numbers as a sign that this political ploy will backfire at the polls.”
“With key voting blocs opposed to the Federal Marriage Amendment, politicians would do better at the polls by focusing on the issues that matter to the electorate,” said Jay Campbell, a senior analyst at Peter D. Hart Research Associates. “Over the years, numbers have gone up when it comes to support for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. The Federal Marriage Amendment fight is looking more and more similar to the Terri Schiavo case, an unwise political maneuver.”
The polling, conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in April 2006 among 802 registered voters nationwide, shows:
# The amendment ranks dead last on list of priorities. When asked about priorities in Congress, voters responded that among a list of top priorities for Congress, affordable health care (55 percent), dealing with Iraq (55 percent), passing new ethics/lobbying laws (25 percent) and passing an amendment banning flag burning (20 percent) all ranked higher than passing an amendment banning gay marriage (18 percent).
I hope folks look at Jim Wallis’s proposals.
Remove the marriage as a function of the state.
The states deal with civil unions and granting civil rights to people.
Churches deal with the institution of marriage and not with civil rights granted by the state.
It gets G&L civil rights away from the church. States can vote to what degree rights are granted; or maybe, an enlightened public will grant full civil rights to all couples; regardless of sex.
The churches can deal with who goes where in some after life or another.
The Republican Strategy
To me, this strategy is a sign of utter weakness. The Republican President Bush is greatly unpopular and the Republican campaignmasters know it. So instead of focusing on themselves, on their ’strengths’, they completely focus on the other and they w…
But we can’t underestimate the pull these so called social wedge issues have. Plus god forbid there is another disaster where Bush can try and show he is competent and intouch with the media’s help of course they can turn things around.
Now if the left and DLC can stop stabbing the dems long enough till after 06 election maybe the dems can take back on of the houses.
The pelosi “we are going to hold hearings” may turn off some. better to say we are going to put accountablility and oversight back in the congress. a round about way of saying investigations but at least it looks better in print and Rove can’t make hay out of it. I don’t trust that Rove will be in prison orange by Nov. 06 so the dems will have to content and contain him.