Republican Malaise

Right wing cheerleader/Valerie Plame snitch Robert Novak has written an article
describing the current feeling among Washington Republicans. Amazingly
enough (considering this is a Novak piece) it's pretty harsh:

[There is] deepening malaise among Republicans in the
capital. They are neither surprised nor terribly worried by polls that
temporarily show George W. Bush trailing John Kerry. What worries the
GOP faithful is the absence of firm leadership in their party either at
the White House or on Capitol Hill. The lack of a ready response to
Greenspan [and his recent recommendation to cut social security], while
Democrats quickly turned his comments into an indictment of President
Bush's tax cuts, was not an isolated failing. Today, Republicans on
either end of Pennsylvania Avenue seem to be going in opposite
directions.

• Disagreement between congressional Republicans and Bush over
  the size of the highway bill reflects mutual recriminations over
  runaway federal spending in general. While the president's aides are
  angered by the lawmakers' addiction to concrete, conservative lawmakers
  are furious that Bush's budget has preserved and actually increased
  federal funding for the arts.
• Bush's call to make his tax cuts permanent and to repeal the
  estate tax for all time leaves Republicans in Congress perplexed about
  how they will be able to write a budget without a massive increase in
  the huge deficit that never will command a majority vote.
• House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and his allies are bitter
  that they received no backing from the president and administration in
  their efforts to keep the independent 9-11 investigation from extending
  into the campaign season.
  
• The president came out for a constitutional amendment to bar
  gay marriage without consulting congressional Republican leaders, which
  helps explain the unenthusiastic reception from his own party on
  Capitol Hill.
• Congressional Republicans still have not recovered from the
  shock of the President's Economic Report extolling the outsourcing of
  industrial jobs -- good economics perhaps, bad politics definitely.

The disaffection is such that over the last two weeks, normally loyal
Republicans -- actually including more than a few members of Congress
-- are privately talking about political merits in the election of Sen.
Kerry. Their reasoning goes like this: There is no way Democrats can
win the House or Senate even if Bush loses. If Bush is re-elected,
Democrats are likely to win both the House and Senate in a 2006 midterm
rebound. If Kerry wins, Republicans will be able to bounce back with
congressional gains in 2006. To voice such heretical thoughts suggests
that Republicans on Capitol Hill are more interested in maintaining the
fruits of majority status first won in 1994 rather than in governing
the country. A few thoughtful GOP lawmakers ponder the record of the first time
in 40 years that the party has controlled both the executive and
legislative branches, and conclude that record is deeply disappointing.
But incipient heresy also reflects shortcomings of the Bush political
operation. Its emphasis has been on fund-raising and organization, with
deficiencies in communicating and leadership. The president is in
political trouble, and his disaffected supporters who should be backing
him aggressively provide the evidence.

First Andrew Sullivan,
now Robert Novak. And it's only March! If this continues to be the
attitude among those who are supposed to be Bush's supporters then he
is in serious trouble.

Thanks to Disillusioned for the link.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 5, 2004 at 08:50 AM | Permalink