Disaffection over spending and immigration have caused conservatives to take flight from President Bush and the Republican Congress at a rapid pace in recent weeks, sending Bush's approval ratings to record lows and presenting a new threat to the GOP's 12-year reign on Capitol Hill, according to White House officials, lawmakers and new polling data.
The Gallup polling organization recorded a 13-percentage-point drop in Republican support for Bush in the past couple weeks. These usually reliable voters are telling pollsters and lawmakers they are fed up with what they see as out-of-control spending by Washington and an abandonment of core conservative principles more generally.
There are also significant pockets of conservatives turning on Bush and Congress over the their failure to tighten immigration laws, restrict gay marriage and to put an end to the Iraq war and the rash of political scandals, according to lawmakers and pollsters.
Bush won two presidential elections by pursuing a political and governing model that was predicated on winning and sustaining the loyal backing of social, economic and foreign policy conservatives. The strategy was based on the belief that conservatives, who are often more politically active than the general public, could be inspired to vote in larger numbers and would serve as a reliable foundation for his presidency. The theory, as explained by Bush strategists, is that the president would enjoy a floor below which his support would never fall.
It is now apparent that this floor has weakened dramatically and collapsed in places.
There is a couple of interesting aspects in this Post story. First, conservatives are angry at the out-of-control spending by both the Bush administration and the Republican Congress. With the Bush administration having already spent almost $4 trillion in five years, conservatives are realizing that the U.S. Treasury is pretty much empty. And with the Feds raising interest rates, the only way to pay for this debt is to either cut the defense spending (and conservatives love a strong defense), or to raise taxes. Social programs have pretty much been cut, but not as much as the Bush neocons would like to eliminate all social programs from the federal government. Second, the corruption scandals and HookerGate have also taken a toll on the Republicans. Conservatives certainly loved to castrate Bill Clinton for having his extra-marital affair, but now that you've got Republican congressmen having poker parties with prostitutes...Well, that is not going to sit well with Middle America. Finally, the conservatives were claiming that Washington was abandoning "core conservative principles," however such principles are defined. Here I would have to wonder if the conservatives who believed in these "core conservative principles" were hard-liners or a part of the Religious Right Wing of the Republican Party. These individuals would certainly focus their attention towards the social issues of the Republican Party--abortion, gay marriage, immigration, intelligent design, racial and minority relations. These are the voters for whom the social issues of "God, Guns, and Gays" work well for the Republican Party. But the Republicans have not been able to capitalize on pushing through a legislative social agenda to satisfy these constituents. They feel that by having elected an evangelist as George Bush in the White House, it is their right to push their theological and social agenda upon the country. And so far after having two hard core conservatives placed upon the Supreme Court by the Bush administration, the Religious Right hasn't seen any more legislative or judicial victories for their agenda. That could also be making them angry at the Republicans.
Interesting poll results here.
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