One of the stories going around Democrat Party circles is that
party operatives like Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (CREW) and American Family Voices weren’t quite ready
for primetime with the opposition research materials they had
gathered for the 2006 election cycle.
According to one political consultant with ties to the DNC and
other party organizations, “I’m hearing the Foley story wasn’t
supposed to drop until about ten days out of the election. It was
supposed the coup de grace, not the first shot.”
So why the rush? According to another DNC operative: bad polling
numbers across the country. “Bush’s national security speeches were
getting traction beyond the base, gas prices were dropping,
economic outlook surveys were positive. We were seeing bad
Democratic numbers in Missouri, Michigan, Washington, Arizona,
Florida Pennsylvania, even parts of New York,” says the operative.
“A month before, we were looking at launching an offensive against
Republicans who according to polling barely held a five-seat
majority if the election were to be held at the end of August. That
was doable for Democrats from September 1 to November 7. But by
mid-September, Republicans were back to having held seats for a
15-seat majority. In the Senate, it looked like a wash. We held
seats in Florida, Nebraska, picked up seats in Pennsylvania, but
that that was about it. They were holding in Missouri and possibly
within reach of Maryland and Washington. We were looking at a
disaster in the making.”
So how to remedy? “You pull out the bright shiny things that
distract the average American voter away from the issues we all
know they care about — national security, anti-terrorism — and
focus on the ugly: Foley and Iraq.”
“Republicans had to have known we’d be looking to change the
national debate,” says a House Democrat leadership aide. “You had
our leadership looking at cratering polling numbers. A majority
within grasp wasn’t drifting away, it was being yanked back by
Republicans. I wouldn’t be surprised if Foley had to be bumped up
on the scandal schedule. That makes a lot of sense given where we
were two weeks ago, and where we are now.”
Conventional wisdom had Republicans seeing improving numbers in
races across the country throughout the month of September after
Congress spent the month of August home campaigning in their
districts. But some Republicans don’t disagree that the polls were
improving that dramatically. “I’ve seen some of the polls and I
don’t buy into the notion that we were making up tons of ground in
a lot of these races,” says one GOP political consultant. “Some of
the underlying data led me to believe that the polling was somewhat
flawed, and that this was a lot of spin to re-energize a base that
was growing disenchanted.”
What no one disputes, however, was that the GOP was sensing some
wind at its back and reinvigorated base with Bush on the stump, and
Congress quietly at home not creating any more messes for the media
to hit on. Now, of course, the Foley story has left a far bigger
mess a month out of Election Day than anyone had expected.
