Two weeks before midterm elections, Republicans are losing the battle for independent voters, who now strongly favor Democrats on the major issues facing the country and overwhelmingly prefer to see them take over the House in November, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Independents are poised to play a pivotal role in next month's elections because Democrats and Republicans are basically united behind candidates of their own parties. Ninety-five percent of Democrats say they will support Democratic candidates for the House while slightly fewer (88 percent) Republicans said they plan to vote for their party's candidates.
The independent voters surveyed said they plan to support Democratic candidates over Republicans by roughly 2-to-1 (59 percent to 31 percent), the largest margin in any Post-ABC News poll this year. Forty-five percent said it would be good if Democrats recapture the House majority while just 10 percent said it would not be. The rest said it would not matter.
The poll also found that independents are highly pessimistic because of the Iraq war and the overall state of the country. Just 23 percent said the country is heading in the right direction compared to 75 percent who say things have gotten off track. Only a quarter of independents approve of the job Congress has done this year and only a third believe the Iraq war has been worth fighting.
Independent voters may strongly favor Democrats, but their vote appears motivated more by dissatisfaction with Republicans than by enthusiasm for the opposition party. About half of those independents saying they plan to vote Democratic in their district said they were doing so primarily to vote against the Republican candidate rather than affirmatively for the Democratic candidate. Just 22 percent of independents voting for Democrats are doing so "very enthusiastically."
Overall, the poll showed that the political climate continues to favor Democrats. President Bush's approval rating among all Americans stood at 37 percent. Two weeks ago, he was at 39 percent, and in September at 42 percent. By more than 2-to-1, Americans disapprove of the way Congress has been doing its job.
The Republicans are in trouble here. They have created both a "culture of corruption" in Washington, and they have refused to provide any congressional oversight into these Republican scandals. The Republicans have continued to push their own extreme conservative political agenda, refusing to engage in true bipartisanship with the Democrats. Finally, the Republican-controlled Congress has played the role of a rubber-stamp Congress to the Bush administration, even refusing to provided oversight between the branches of government.
All of this has accumulated into a snowball effect against the Republicans. Their refusal to engage in any government oversight has certainly labeled the Republicans as the corrupt political party. The scandals are even going towards the heart of the Bush electorate--the Evangelicals--as David Kuo's book Tempting Faith describes how the Bush administration played politics with the Evangelicals to gain political campaign contributions and evangelical votes, but refused to even adequately fund the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. In other words, the Republican Party was conning the Evangelicals to provide money and votes to the Republicans, while providing nothing in return. By shunning the Democrats out of the congressional decision-making process, the Republicans have only themselves to blame for the disasters that plague our country--no matter how hard they try, the Republicans can't blame the Democrats for four years of Republican-controlled government blunders of Iraq, Katrina, health care, out-of-control government spending, Intelligence failures, lousy job market, and scandals. Not only can the Republicans not blame the Democrats for their own failures, but the extreme partisanship they've created in Washington has denied the Republicans of any bipartisan legislation they could have touted as accomplishments for the elections. The Republicans have no legislative accomplishments they can provide to either centrist Democratic or Independent voters. Even this partisan environment the Republicans have created for six years has denied the Republicans any chance of reaching out towards Democratic congressmen for bipartisanship. The Republican Party has created a rubber-stamp Congress for a unitary executive Bush presidency. Bipartisanship, according to the Republicans, also means that the Democrats should rubber-stamp whatever legislation the Republicans can force down the Democrats throats. This is another failure that is coming back to haunt the Republicans to court moderate in independent votes--if the Republicans are unwilling to compromise with the Democrats, they are certainly unwilling to compromise with moderates and independents.
So now we come to this political poll. The polarization has split the country between the two political parties, where each will vote for their own political party's candidates. The Republican Party has certainly alienated the more moderate members of their party with their extremist ideology, and perhaps the Republicans have even caused the Evangelicals to stay home from voting after the details were revealed in the release of Kuo's book Tempting Faith. This brings us back to the independent vote. What is left for the Republicans to sell to the independents to vote Republican? According to the WaPost:
Iraq is cited most frequently as the most important voting issue in the midterm elections. Two weeks ago, 26 percent of those surveyed cited the war as the single most important issue determining their vote in November, compared with 23 percent who cited the economy and 14 percent saying terrorism. In the new poll, 27 percent say Iraq but 19 percent mentioned the economy, with 14 percent saying terrorism.
Independents are almost as likely as Democrats to cite Iraq as the single most important issue in the campaign. Both are twice as likely as Republicans to single out the war when asked about the election's top issues.
Independents do not limit their criticism of the war to the president. Fifty-five percent of independents said congressional Republicans deserve a "great deal" or a "good amount" of the blame for problems there. Fewer (just 36 percent) give congressional Republicans credit for helping to prevent a terrorist attack against the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
It all comes back to Iraq. Iraq is a huge disaster for the Republicans here. The Bush administration sold their invasion and occupation of Iraq on the threat of Iraq's possession of WMDs. The Bush administration marketed this invasion with cherry-picked intelligence supporting their war. The Bush administration failed to provide enough troops to occupy Iraq, and failed to develop an adequate reconstruction program to rebuild Iraq. Now the U.S. military is embroiled in low-tech insurgency in Iraq that they cannot win. Public opinion polls have shifted from American support of the war to American opposition to the war--and the Bush administration continues to promote their "stay-the-course" strategy. These continued Bush administration failures in Iraq are now translating into poll results against the Republican Party. And there is more according to the WaPost:
Voters also continue to trust Democrats more than Republicans to deal with the war, as well as the economy and ethics in government. On terrorism, the two parties are at parity.
But independents, the key swing voter group, strongly trust the Democrats on all of those issues by margins ranging from 14 percentage points on terrorism to 23 percentage points on Iraq and North Korea and 26 points on ethics in government.
The growing independent support for Democratic House candidates represents a significant shift in attitudes since the 2004 election, when the Democrats held only a narrow advantage. In winning his reelection, Bush and Kerry split the independent vote (49 Kerry-48 Bush) and in the vote for the House, independents divided 49-46 percent for Democratic candidates.
The Republican scare tactics of voting Republican because the Republicans are stronger on terrorism are no longer working. When the independents are trusting the Democrats more than the Republicans on issues of terrorism, Iraq, and North Korea, then the Republican Party has to promote even more outragious scare tactic ads such as this latest GOP ad?
Are independent Americans so gullible as to accept the premise of this latest Republican scare tactic ad? Even after being exposed to the overwhelming evidence of Republican corruption, crass partisanship, intelligence failures, and failures in Iraq, Bush administration lies, and GOP scandals?
Or is it that the Republican Party hopes to believe in such American gullibility?
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