It was a given that this election year was going be rough on the Republican Party, but things are really looking down and might even be worse than current polling reflects.
Even the buzz is working against the GOP.
From the link:
2. Enthusiasm is much higher among Democrats than among Republicans. The latest Diageo/Hotline numbers show that 72 percent of Democrats are enthusiastic about voting for their candidate, as opposed to 55 percent of Republicans.
… is way higher than GOP fever, but this Gallup poll puts it into very clear perspective. I wouldn’t want to be a downticket GOP candidate this year, especially since McCain might actually keep voters out of the booth on November 4.
From the lInk:
Only 51% of Republicans say they are more enthusiastic about voting than in previous years, compared to 71% of Democrats, marking a shift from October 2004, when enthusiasm was about the same for both partisan groups.
This disproportionate enthusiasm, measured in a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted over the weekend, is not a new phenomenon this year. Democrats have reported a higher “more enthusiastic” reading each of the seven times Gallup has asked the question in 2008. The smallest gap was a 7-point Democratic advantage in the Sept. 5-7 USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted just after the Republican National Convention.
The one-time Reagan speechwriter, longtime GOP supporter and Wall Street Journal columnist has over the years been many things for the Republican Party — apparatchik, cheerleader, gently guiding hand — and now, over a series of columns, she’s been forced to speak truth to power on how the GOP is no longer a “conservative” party. It serves some new god, but certainly it is no longer the party of Lincoln or Reagan. Or Nixon for that matter.
She keeps the pressure on the party she loves with today’s column.
Some excerpts:
The Democrats aren’t the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they’re finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They’re busy being born.
The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They’re frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.
And,
“This was a real wakeup call for us,” someone named Robert M. Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York Times. This was after Mississippi. “We can’t let the Democrats take our issues.” And those issues would be? “We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives,” he continued. Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.
Here’s an interesting post describing the daunting task facing the GOP for this election cycle, and beyond. The quoted bit below describes exactly how the GOP completely ceased to be fiscally conservative by any measure. To my mind the GOP has ceased to be even socially conservative — I think it’s fair to say Republican social policy over the last twelve years, give or take, is much more Christianist than conservative.
From the link:
Republicans held all the levers of power in Washington for six years. They turned budget surpluses into huge deficits, which put pressure on the dollar. The financial industry’s house of cards got blown down and the Federal Reserve cut rates to head off a recession. That put even more pressure on the dollar. Its value sank against other currencies, and investors have taken refuge in commodities, driving those prices up. Republicans’ aggressive, swaggering foreign policy has shot uncertainty through the market, driving (dollar denominated) oil to record highs. Simply put, their policies have put us in a position where we can’t deficit spend, can’t lower prices, can’t cut rates and can’t do much to restore value to our currency. Even simpler, every time you fill up your tank or buy a loaf of bread you pay the Bush Tax.
Does Romney have any chance for the GOP nomination? Ross Douthat makes a case here. He doesn’t think a Romney comeback is likely, but it’s not as impossible as it’s been made to seem.
Here’s the national numbers from Gallup for the end of the week before Tsunami Tuesday.
Key figures:
Dems — Clinton 48%, Obama 41%; with Clinton getting a four point bounce the last day of the poll.
Reps — McCain 44%, Romney 24%, Huckabee 16%; McCain gets a five point bounce the last day, Romney holds steady and Huckabee loses a point. Longer trend lines show both Romney and Huckabee staying fairly even and McCain strongly rising beginning January 27.
First Rudy, now Huckabee.
It seems the preacher’s top staff isn’t getting paid right now. He’s not advertising in Florida, and maybe even more damning is he’s no longer providing transportation for the press. The press pays their own way, but most campaigns offer planes, buses, etc., to and from events. Huckabee’s contingent of press corps followers isn’t large enough to justify the expense of even offering transportation.
Romney, of course, will not face these issues since he can self-fund all day long if necessary.
David Kirkpatrick 