In a season of discontent for the White House, Tuesday's election results intensified Republican anxiety that next year's midterm contests could bring serious losses unless George W. Bush finds a way to turn around his presidency and shore up support among disaffected, moderate swing voters.
Off-year gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey have proved to be unreliable predictors of elections, as Republican officials were quick to point out yesterday. But as short-term indicators, Tuesday's results confirmed that nothing happened to alter a political climate that now tilts against the GOP and that the president remains in the midst of a slump.
But Democrats may also have to learn some of the lessons from Tuesday if they hope to capitalize on Bush's weakness and make themselves competitive in red states as well as blue states. In Virginia, victorious candidate Timothy M. Kaine ran a campaign at odds with the strategy of many traditional Democrats, one that focused on religion and values and that appealed as much to swing voters as to the party's base.
This is interesting because this is the one issue Democrats have always been squeamish on--family values and religion. The Republicans have been bashing the Democrats with these "family values," while the Democrats have been dumbfounded at trying to find an answer or response to the Republican-defined issue of family values. Now Kaine comes along and campaigns in Virginia stressing family values and religion--both are considered Republican-defined strong points. Continuing in the Post article:
Republican hopes for a quick morale boost had centered on conservative Virginia. Instead, the gubernatorial results there raised concerns among some Republicans that Bush's favored political strategy of mobilizing conservative voters by dividing the electorate on cultural and social issues may have prompted a backlash among voters in inner and outer suburbs who were vital to Bush's reelection in 2004.
"It's not just that they lost these elections," said Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin, "but that none of their old tricks worked that they've relied on to give them the edge in close contests."
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said the GOP's reliance on cultural issues, popular with rural voters, "are just blowing up" in suburban and exurban communities. "You play to your rural base, you pay a price," he said.
Kaine did not play the Republican game of responding to the Republican defined version of family values. This is both an advantage and a problem with the Democratic Party. Red-state voters are conservative regarding social issues. They don't like the ideas of gay marriage, seperations of church and state, gun control and such. The Republicans have been effective at using these issues to energize their base for voting Republican--GOD,GUNS, and GAYS! The Democrats have got to find a way to redefine these issues to reflect new values. Instead of gay marriage, the Democrats need to take out the religious aspect of marriage, and highlight the discrimination of civil rights to alternative couples. The Democrats have to show the dangers this country faces if the government is controlled by religious extremists. For gun control, the Democrats have to show it doesn't mean taking away your guns, but rather to provide common-sense regulations for owning guns for hunting or protection--does anyone need an AK-47, or a .50 caliber sniper rifle for hunting and / or protection?
But the big issue that both the Democrats and Republicans need to understand is that they need to campaign and govern for the swing / centrist voter.
Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) said there is an important lesson for Democrats in the Virginia results, arguing that Kaine turned the campaign in his direction by persuasively linking his opposition to the death penalty to his religious faith.
"If you have the luxury of running in New York or California, you might run a different campaign," he said. "But if you run in most of the swing states, for every progressive voter there are probably two swing voters. You've got to appeal to the moderate voters. Swing voters do not respond well to partisanship and to negative campaigning. What they're really looking for are people with integrity and people trying to solve their problems."
For Bush, the results from Tuesday and a succession of new polls showing him at the lowest point of his presidency mean further tensions with congressional Republicans. "It creates an environment where individual members start looking out for themselves rather than the whole team," Republican pollster Bill McInturff said.
In the presidential primaries, a candidate needs to campaign for the greatest number of their party constituents--which means to attract the extremists. So you tilt your message towards your base supporters--whether right or left. But in the general election, your political party is going up against the opposing half of the political ideology. The message and campaign style has to change to reflect the other half of the country's population and ideology. So if you're a Republican, you have to campaign for moderate Democratic votes and independents, and visa versa for Democrats. And if you and your party wins the White House or Congressional seats, you have to make sure you govern from the center--not the extremes. Now Karl Rove was able to look at the statistics of the electorate, and discover a little trick in ignoring the moderates and independents, while turning to the religious base of the Republican Party. He used that little trick to get George Bush into the White House. But I'm not sure if Rove realized how damaging this was in polarizing the electorate the we currently have today. First, by playing towards the extremist, religious wing of the Republican Party, Rove reinforced the notion that the extremists gave George Bush the White House and now Bush owes them. We can see the results of that notion with the conservative outcry over the Harriet Miers nomination--and withdrawal--to the Supreme Court, and the upcoming fight over Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court by both liberals and conservatives. Second, since the extremist on the Republican side demand that President Bush owes them, Bush ends up governing further to the right. This has alienated liberal, independent and moderate views in the government, further polarizing the electorate. We can see that in a whole host of issues--ANWR drilling, credit card bankruptcy bill which makes it harder for Americans to declare bankruptcy, an energy policy that favors Big Oil and drilling over energy conservation, cuts in welfare and food stamp benefits, more tax breaks to the rich elites and corporate interests. This alienation of moderates and independents can be seen in the rapidly dropping poll numbers on Bush's job performance--just about everyone is leaving Bush except his core conservative constituents. But an even bigger problem looms for Bush. By governing from the far right, Bush has not only alienated the moderates and independents, and has polarized the country, but Bush has also infuriated the liberals and Democrats on the other side of the political spectrum. While some of these people may not have voted for Bush anyways, this alienation and anger may cause these voters to contribute more in the political process--either volunteering or providing more campaign contributions for the Democratic Party. So the Republicans may have to face a re-energized and angered Democratic Party for the midterm elections.
But how are the Republicans reading this special election? Here's some comments from the Post:
Party leaders offered competing analyses of the results. Mehlman said they were not tied to Bush's popularity, noting that Republicans lost New Jersey and Virginia four years ago when the president's approval rating was at 87 percent.
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said he would be crowing as the Democrats were doing had the results gone the other way, but he added: "I don't think there's a lot to read into it. The incumbent parties retained what they had."
Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster, called the results "a lot of ado about nothing." He said that while Bush's popularity is down, the mood of the country is neither anti-Republican nor anti-incumbent.
Republicans grumbled privately about the losing Virginia gubernatorial campaign of Republican Jerry W. Kilgore, but some GOP strategists said the real problem is finding an agenda that can rally the party and shake up the political environment. One strategist said that, given the mood of voters, Republicans escaped a much worse outcome Tuesday, but he was gloomy about what the GOP can do next.
"We're tapped out on taxes," he said, asking not to be identified to offer a more candid analysis. "We failed on Social Security. We're nowhere on health care. Medicare didn't do it. The war's not going well. The economy's in fact going well, but we're not getting credit for it."
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