The most fascinating political development of the summer has
occurred with little notice. Republicans are respected again. Wait,
what?
Believe it or not, entering the final quarter of the eighth year
of the George W. Bush presidency, Republicans are ascending in
popularity, Politico.com reported yesterday. Half of registered
voters and half of independent voters have a favorable opinion of
the GOP, according to a new poll from the Pew Center for the People
and the Press. Democrats hold a slight edge in favorability among
registered voters (55 percent to 50 percent), but they are
statistically tied with Republicans among independent voters
(Republicans 50 percent, Democrats 49 percent.)
How could this happen? Anyone half-paying attention for the past
eight years can rattle off the list of reasons voters are supposed
to be fleeing the GOP: Iraq, Katrina, Wall Street, Abramoff, DeLay,
Bridge to Nowhere, bin Laden at large, gas prices, and home
mortgages. When Democratic presidential candidates dream, they
dream of election years like this one.
And yet since August the Republicans have closed an 18 point gap
with Democrats among independent voters. A new Gallup poll finds
that Democrats have only a three-point edge (within the margin of
error) when people are asked which party they want to control
Congress.
I think the answer is pretty clear: The Democratic leadership in
Congress took the golden opportunity it was given in 2006 and
pissed it away on petty partisanship — just like the Republicans
who preceded them did.
A Gallup poll out this week is revealing. It found that only 47
percent of Americans say they have trust in the legislative branch
of the federal government. That’s the first time that number has
dipped below 50 percent since Gallup began asking that question in
1972. The same poll found that only 18 percent of Americans approve
of the job Congress is doing vs. 31 percent who approve of the job
President Bush is doing.
There is good reason for those low ratings. When voters swept
Democrats into power two years ago, they expected that the party
would deliver on its promises. It hasn’t. Instead of leadership and
statesmanship, we got gamesmanship. Instead of governing, Nancy
Pelosi and Harry Reid embarked on a two-year political
campaign.
The Democrats opposed the troop surge in Iraq. When the surge
turned a raging insurgency into a slinking retreat and the
Democrats ridiculously proclaimed that it wasn’t working, an
average American listening to both sides could only shrug his
shoulders and wonder what in the world the Democrats were
smoking.
When Democrats opposed every measure to increase domestic oil
production, they angered millions of Americans. And when they
finally tried to claim they were for new drilling by producing two
bills that allowed new drilling only where there was little or no
oil, Americans quickly picked up on the scam.
On all of the major issues of the past two years, the Democrats
chose to play political gotcha instead of actually govern. The
public, it turns out, seems to have seen through the charade. It’s
kind of hard to convince Americans that you feel their pain when,
for example, you are doing everything in your power to keep gas
prices high through the election. By being Democrats first and
public representatives second, Democrats have lost the enormous
advantage in goodwill the Republicans handed them on a silver
platter two years ago.
This election year should have produced a Democratic sweep of
historic proportions, delivering the White House and massive
majorities in the House and Senate. But thanks to the incompetence
of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Republicans might pull a
respectable showing.
