Newswire - Republicans May Have to Handle the ‘Angry Voter’

Angervote

The Eagle-Tribune

Bryan McGonigle

Boston University Washington News Service

Nov. 1, 2006

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 – The Republican Party has more money than the Democratic Party going into next week’s mid-term elections. But analysts say anger may trump cash this year, and there’s plenty of anger to go around.

“Barring a dramatic event, we are looking at the prospect of GOP losses in the House of at least 20 to 35 seats, possibly more, and at least four in the Senate, with five or six most likely,” Charlie Cook,  publisher of The Cook Political Report, which analyzes elections, wrote on the organization’s Web site Monday. “This year, it is the war in Iraq and scandals… . It would seem that voters of all ideological stripes feel the GOP-led Congress has become dysfunctional.”

The Republican-controlled Congress has an approval rating of 16 percent, according to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, and President Bush’s approval rating lingers at below 40 percent. This party disapproval and dissatisfaction with a seemingly endless war, according to many experts, could be a strong enough factor to deflect the Republican money machine.

Democrats in many key races have gained substantial leads in the polls, and analysts are predicting a Democratic takeover of the House and possibly the Senate.

But Brian Darling, director of government relations at the Heritage Foundation,  a conservative research group in Washington, said the polls are misleading and the Republicans shouldn’t be counted out yet.

“The polls indicate the American people are dissatisfied with both parties,” Darling said. “Those projections are changing. Most of these races are tightening up, and the pundits are modifying their predictions. Americans are pretty evenly divided, and this election will reflect that.”

Darling said that the Iraq war approval-disapproval ratings show a growing dissatisfaction with the war, and that this will play a factor in voting. But the numbers, he said, don’t necessarily reflect which party people will vote for.

“Some of the opposition is the antiwar sentiment,” he said. “But another side is our conservatives that want to see progress in Iraq. So we’re having dissatisfaction from the right and the left on the issue. Clearly the president doesn’t use ‘stay the course’ anymore.”

Nathan Gonzales, political editor of The Rothenberg Political Report, said it’s unclear how massive the “angry vote” will be, but issues like the war and congressional scandals could hurt Republicans.

“I think the war in Iraq is certainly an issue in a lot of these races, because it feeds into a big reason why people disapprove of the job President Bush  is doing,” Gonzales said. “It may not affect hardcore partisans, but it is certainly affecting soft Republicans and independents.”

The online sex scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., will affect various districts on a local level but will not have a national impact, Gonzales said.

“As a blanket message, I don’t think it’s sticking,” he said.

President Bush has been scarcely shown in Republican ads nationwide, but he’s been in many Democratic ads linking Republican candidates to Bush and what the ads call the president’s failed policies. That hasn’t stopped the president from campaigning in largely Republican districts.

“President Bush is going to districts where the base needs to be rallied and the base needs to be unified,” Gonzales said.

Darling said the Republicans can chop away at Democratic leads by getting back to the GOP’s platform of slimming government and calling for less spending.

“I guess the mistake that many conservatives feel the Republicans have made are they spent too much money, they’ve embraced big government, they’ve been too supportive of earmarks,” Darling said. “And those in the conservative movement have looked at the Republican Party to make a pledge to do away with earmarks.”

Gonzales said it’s all about the district, and that a Republican candidate in an angry district would “need to convince the voters that the Democratic opponent is an unacceptable alternative.”

Aaron McLear, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said Republicans should focus on the economic benefits of the Bush tax cuts and remind voters of the progress the party has made in the war on terror with legislation like the Patriot Act.

“The question is, what did we learn on 9/11?” McLear said. “We need to take to be on the offensive in the war on terror.”

McLear said that while the polls may favor Democrats now, they don’t reflect the Republicans’ ability to mobilize their voters on election day.

“I think we showed in 2004, when people saw Kerry winning, the Democrats didn’t see our sophisticated means of getting the vote out,” he said.

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