It will come as no surprise that the Republicans are in disarray, with even hard-core partisans turning on President Bush. His support among Republicans has dropped 13 points in the past couple of weeks, and conservatives are turning on both Bush and Congress for a long list of failures, from massive spending to political scandals to immigration and more.
Those are just poll numbers, of course, and it's never a good idea to read too much into them. But the trend has been significant. And the really bad news for Republicans is that conservatives increasingly see little difference between them and the Democrats:
Michael Franc, a top official at the Heritage Foundation, said his organization hosted 600 of its top conservative donors last week and heard more widespread complaining about Republicans than at any other point in the past 12 years. "It begins with spending, extends through immigration and results in a sense that we have Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee for the two parties," Franc said.
Without that difference to energize the base, the election will come down to a referendum on Republican governance — which they will lose. This is a good thing in general, as most elections should be a referendum on the party in power. And in this case Republicans roundly deserve to lose. Let's just hope we don't see a whole lot of bad legislation over the next six months as the GOP desperately tries to shore up its prospects.
What might be surprising is that the Democrats, who ought to be laughing all the way to the voting booth, are in disarray, too:
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and the leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have clashed angrily in recent days in a dispute about how the party should spend its money in advance of this fall's midterm elections.Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who is leading the party's effort to regain majority status in the House, stormed out of Dean's office several days ago leaving a trail of expletives, according to Democrats familiar with the session.
The problem is that some Dems want to focus on winning seats this November, while Dean wants to take a long-term view and rebuild the party from the ground up — and there's not enough money to do both well.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Rahm Emanuel is the boiled down essence of everything that's wrong with the democratic party. His efforts as head of the DCCC to undermine promising candidates in the primaries so that his picked stooges would get all the money and the nominations were disgusting. This placement of pure politics and factionalism ahead of the good of his own party and the people in general is despicable and characteristic of the way too many people in both parties think.
Dave
2 - JP
Great article Sean, I've been reading Midtopia a bit. Don't always agree, but I like the focus on countering the influence of the extremists.
Dean's not the guy.
3 - Sean Aqui
Dave: Agreed that the problem is seeking ideological purity, which works for a small party but not a big tent one. Some of it appears to be part of the Democratic attempt to define some core values and compete with the Republicans on that score. They should instead try to outline some broad principles and be proud of the fact that they want to be a big party in which members disagree on most substantial issues.
JP: Thanks. I used to be satisfied with the basic nature of American politics, in which the two parties were forced to move toward the middle in order to govern. My involvement in political discussion can be traced to the day I began to feel that such was no longer the case, and instead we were being presented with two increasingly unpalatable choices.
I wish the parties would realize that what works in the backroom doesn't play well out in the real world, and that governing solely for one's base is both unworkable and unconscionable.
4 - troll
*perhaps the ideologues will be thrown overboard and the moderates reassert control. The public hunger for such a move exists*
Sean - please explain what you mean by moderate governance (in this time of international conflict) and where you get the idea that the public hungers for it
seems to me that the public loves its ideologues
troll
5 - Sean Aqui
Low Congressional approval ratings
Low Bush approval ratings
Polls that consistently show strong support for centrist positions on such hot-button topics as abortion and sex ed
Low voter turnout
Increasing numbers of people who don't identify with either party and register as independents