[Mb-civic] Bush's Midterm Challenge - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Bush's Midterm Challenge
Rebuilding Public Support May Bolster GOP Candidates

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 29, 2006; A01

President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday night marks the 
opening of a midterm election year eagerly anticipated by Democrats and 
fraught with worries for Republicans, whose hopes in November may depend 
in large part on how successfully Bush can turn around his troubled 
presidency.

After his reelection victory in 2004, Bush often pointed out that he 
would never again be on a ballot as a candidate. But the coming year in 
many ways represents another national campaign for the president, aimed 
at preserving the gains his party has made in the past five years, as 
well as rehabilitating a reputation that has come under brutal assault 
from the opposition in recent months.

There is no doubt that Bush intends to run this campaign as forcefully 
as if he were on the ballot himself. He ended 2005, the worst year of 
his presidency, with an aggressive defense of his Iraq policies, and he 
has begun the new year with an uncompromising justification of his 
policy of warrantless domestic surveillance.

Tuesday's speech, with its massive prime-time audience, may be the most 
important forum Bush has all year to try to seize the initiative from 
the Democrats and frame the election season on his terms. But he will be 
standing in the House as a far less formidable politician than when he 
stood on the same podium a year ago. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll 
shows Bush with a lower approval rating than any postwar president at 
the start of his sixth year in office -- with the exception of Richard 
M. Nixon, who was crippled by Watergate.

Bush's approval rating now stands at 42 percent, down from 46 percent at 
the beginning of the year, although still three percentage points higher 
than the low point of his presidency last November.

The poll also shows that the public prefers the direction Democrats in 
Congress would take the country as opposed to the path set by the 
president, that Americans trust Democrats over Republicans to address 
the country's biggest problems and that they strongly favor Democrats 
over Republicans in their vote for the House.

The political stakes this year are especially high. What happens will 
affect not only the final years of Bush's presidency, but also will 
shape what is likely to be an even bigger election for his successor in 
2008. Republicans have been on the ascendancy throughout the Bush 
presidency, but they begin the year not only resigned to some losses in 
Congress but also fearful that, under a worst-case scenario, an eruption 
of voter dissatisfaction could cost them control of the House or Senate 
or both.

Uniting Republicans

Gary Jacobson, a political science professor at the University of 
California at San Diego, said the key from Bush's vantage point is 
maintaining near-universal support for the president from Republicans. 
Last fall, when Bush's approval ratings fell to their lowest point, he 
suffered erosion among Republicans, but later polls have shown that he 
regained some of that support. "As long as he can hold support of his 
own partisans, he can keep the Republicans in Congress from getting too 
nervous," Jacobson said.

Bush also has some intangible assets. The first is that Bush has proved 
to be a skilled and effective political candidate who beat the odds in 
the past and would like nothing better than to upset conventional 
assumptions again this year. The other is that Democrats must take 
maximum advantage of every opportunity because the number of truly 
competitive House districts is low by historical standards.

Bush won reelection in 2004 with a lower approval rating than any other 
reelected president of the post-World War II era, save for Harry S. 
Truman. Rhodes Cook, an independent political analyst, said Bush's 
overall approval rating may be less damaging politically than it was for 
other presidents. "His strength is in fundraising and mobilizing the 
base," Cook said. "He can still do both very well."

Democrats see the political landscape as the most favorable to them 
since Bush took office. They view the war in Iraq as a continuing 
political burden for the administration, and hope to reap gains on the 
corruption issue, epitomized by the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. "Any 
reasonable reading of the trends would suggest that Democrats can expect 
significant gains this November," said Paul Harstad, a Democratic 
pollster. "That includes historical patterns, Republican scandals and a 
growing realization of the insidious cost of unchallenged Republican rule."

But Bush and his team believe they can change the equation. White House 
Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove put Democrats on notice a week ago when 
he promised a campaign of sharp contrasts on national security, taxes 
and the economy, and judicial philosophy. That signaled a rerun of 
previous Bush campaigns, in which Republicans forced Democrats into a 
debate on national security and terrorism, polarized the electorate, and 
used those and other issues to mobilize and turn out rank-and-file 
Republicans in large numbers.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman offered a cautious 
overall forecast for the midterms, saying he expects a tough year and 
knows that the party in power often loses seats in midterm races. "We 
have a historical challenge to overcome," he said. "I believe we will 
overcome that. I believe we will maintain our majorities in the House 
and the Senate."

The 'Six-Year Itch'

History appears to favor the Democrats. Midterm elections in the sixth 
year of a two-term presidency have proved particularly difficult for the 
party in the White House. Republicans suffered significant losses in the 
midterm elections of 1958, 1974 and 1986, the sixth year of presidency 
for Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon and Ronald Reagan, respectively. Democrats 
took a bath in 1966, the sixth year of the combined administrations of 
John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

But there was a notable anomaly. In 1998, aided by public backlash 
against Republican calls for impeachment, Democrats gained seats in the 
House and held even in the Senate in Bill Clinton's sixth year in office.

Whether that was an aberration or the disintegration of the pattern of 
the "six-year itch" will not be clear until November. Nor will it be 
clear, even if the Democrats gain nominal ground in November, whether 
that signals a broader shift away from the Republicans that could carry 
over to 2008 or was merely an outcome typical of midterm elections.

The Post-ABC News poll offers a revealing portrait of a restless 
electorate at the start of the campaign year. By 51 percent to 35 
percent, Americans said they preferred to go in the direction outlined 
by congressional Democrats rather than the direction established by the 
president. On the eve of last year's State of the Union address, 45 
percent said they preferred to follow the path of the president, 
compared with 39 percent who said they favored the Democrats' course.

By 54 percent to 38 percent, voters surveyed said they would vote for 
the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate for the House in 
November. That is one of the largest margins favoring the Democrats in 
two decades, although the gerrymandered House districts mean that 
incumbents are safer today than they were in the past.

By 51 percent to 37 percent, Americans said they trust the Democrats 
more than the Republicans with the main problems facing the country over 
the next few years, the first time since spring 1992 that Democrats have 
gained more than 50 percent support on that question.

Four in 10 (43 percent) surveyed said they approve of the way Congress 
is doing its job, while 64 percent said they approve of the job their 
own member of the House is doing. In comparison, in March 1994, the year 
Republicans captured control of the House and Senate, approval of the 
Democratic-controlled Congress stood at 35 percent, with 62 percent 
approving the job their own House member was doing.

Democrats have gained ground in the past two months on two other 
measures. The public sees Democrats as more likely to stand up to 
lobbyists and special-interest groups, 46 percent to 27 percent. In 
December, Democrats held a lead of eight percentage points. Republicans 
still are viewed as having stronger leaders, but Democrats have narrowed 
that gap by more than half.

A total of 1,002 randomly selected adults were interviewed nationally 
Jan. 23-26 for the Post-ABC News survey. The margin of sampling error 
for the overall results is plus or minus three percentage points.

Front-Burner Issues

In the latest poll, Bush received negative marks for his handling of 
Iraq, the federal budget deficit, ethics in government, prescription 
drugs for the elderly, the economy, immigration, health care and taxes. 
Only on terrorism did the poll find that more than 50 percent of 
Americans approved of his performance.

Where Bush has dropped significantly is among independent voters. His 
approval rating in the latest Post-ABC poll among independents is 37 
percent. The Post-ABC News poll showed that Americans remain far from 
optimistic about the economy, despite steady growth. Forty percent 
called the economy good or excellent, down from 45 percent in December.

Democrats believe events on the ground, at home and abroad, will 
override political strategy and tactics this year. "If the economy 
behaves on the upside of the range and things go better than expected in 
Iraq, then Republicans have a fighting chance to limit their losses," 
said William A. Galston, a Clinton administration official now at the 
Brookings Institution. "If not, it's going to be a long, grim fall for 
the Republican Party."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012801086.html
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