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86d in 06: why the next election might be the Democrats 94Posted by: Jon Henke on Wednesday, May 25, 2005
I wouldn't be too confident about '06 if I were Ken Mehlman. It seems the public is ready for a regime change...or at least some new faces on Capitol Hill. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll taken May 20-22, people were asked:
"Do you think the country would be better off if the Republicans controlled Congress, or if the Democrats controlled Congress?"
Republicans: 36%Democrats: 47%. The remaining respondents split between "neither/same/no opinion".
That's a significant swing from '02, when the campaign season saw Democrats and Republicans essentially tied at around 39%. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll had similar results, with "controlled by Democrats" outpacing "controlled by Republicans" 47% to 40%, andperhaps more tellinglyrespondents indicating by a margin of 45% to 42% that they wanted their own Congressman replaced. Generally, voters unhappy with Congress tend to be unhappy with other people's Congressmen.
It seems to me that the middle (including what Bill Quick calls the "Libertarian Center") is being put off by what Glenn Reynolds describes as the "relatively small groupunder 20% of the electorate, I'd guessthat would really like to recast American society under far more religiously determined lines".
Say, maybe this'd be a good time for Republicans to notice that their constituency consists of more than evangelicals. They might even consider trying to actually appeal to that "libertarian center". Otherwise, '06 looks like it might be ugly for the GOP.
UPDATE: Why are people so unhappy? Dale Franks summed it up in a post earlier today:
In domestic policy, Bush has given us the worst of all possible worlds: a government that is conservative on religious issues and liberal on fiscal policy issues. He has, in effect, jettisoned most of the governing theory of conservatism, except for tax cuts, and kept the social conservatism of the Religious Right. Ronald Reagan certainly had his faults on fiscal policy, but at least he knew how to mollify the Religious Right and keep them in the tent without giving them anything of real substance. Mr. Bush, on the other hand, seems unable to deny the Religious Right anything.
That's a troublesome to American voters, because, while the electorate is at least nominally religious, they have a strong aversion to being preached to. Especially by politicians.
I believe the tension that exists is not the the electorate is tiring of conservatism, but rather that they are tiring of George W. Bush. And that's not surprising, because a significant number of Republican voters are tired of him. But they are tired of him because, in the areas that count with fiscal conservatives, he isn't very conservative at all. So, it is, therefore, hard to read Mr. Bush's relative unpopularity as a referendum on fiscal conservatism per se, because Mr. Bush has exercised precious little of it.
Mr. Bush is, frankly, a populist. He has followed a policy of low taxes, increased public spending, and trade protection. It's a wonder he hasn't started campaigning for free silver. But it's important to remember that while Mr. Bush may have alienated fiscal conservative/libertarian-leaning voters, he hasn't eliminated them, and their dissatisfaction arises from the fact that they've gotten too little of what they wanted from Mr. Bush, not, as Mr. Fineman seems to be arguing, too much.
Domestically, the Bush administration doesn't appear to stand for conservatism, libertarianism or any other actual political philosophy. Indeed, as I wrote once before, if there is any domestic political philosophy that seems to be guiding the Bush administration, it is "opportunitarianism" in which traditional conservative principles of "smaller government" and "limited government" have become subservient to the very realand very compromisingdemands of electoral politics.
Neoconservatives see this expansion of government as "natural, indeed inevitable"certainly a defensible positionand seek to work within that framework for more marginal gains.
So, the Republicans have become a party focused on utilitarian political goals, rather than coherent philosophical ideals. It's uncomfortable to both conservatives and libertarianswho prefer a bit more principle in their politicsto moderates who dislike the factionalism and incoherence...and to liberals, who dislike a moving target.
It remains to be seen whether the neoconservatives can gather enough of a coalition to make this opportunitarianism a permanent aspect of US politics, but the polling data for '06 seems to indicate otherwise. What we will likely see is a decisive fracture in the Republican Party....a break between the social conservatives, economic conservatives, libertarians, and moderates.
IControlThePast said:Yeah it's the usual stuff. For most people, the grass is always greener on the other side. They think the party not in power can do the better job. These are the independants in the center. Then there are the Democratic and Republican supporters. The conservative Republican supporters have probably not been very happy because of the large debt the government incurred, and because of the Shiavo case, which alienated both people for and against action. They called a Congressional vote, which angered people against, but despite having all Republicans in power, they couldn't stop it, which angered the Religious Right. Things can change a lot in a year though, but right now support for the Republicans is slipping, including the latest presidential polls.
Kathianne said:Correct. The GOP can count on the religious right, those not alienated by borders and failure on Schaivo. The rest of their support from '04? Well you have the border issue, the SS issue, the NCLB issue, the fact that the religious right is pushing for creationism, the Schaivo debacle, the lack of coherence on WOT...
