June 25, 2006
As the 2006 midterm congressional elections approach, Republican President George W. Bush’s popularity in the polls has reached historic lows.
Gas prices are at historic highs. Public health care is in crisis. The war in Iraq has become a quagmire.
In Congress, the Jack Abramoff scandal and the fall of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay are at the top of a stack of scandals that has sullied many GOP incumbents and a few Democrats as well.
The Republican Party - now in control of the U.S. House, U.S. Senate and the White House - looks as politically vulnerable as it has ever been in the battle for midterm congressional seats later this year.
The polls show Democrats in a position to gain significant ground in the midterm congressional elections.
Even more intriguing for Democrats is the prospect of the 2008 presidential election. Given the problems that confront the country and Bush’s plunge in the polls, Democratic Party operatives are salivating over a chance to heap the blame for Bush-era problems on the back of the 2008 Republican nominee.
With runaway government spending, growth in government bureaucracies and the lack of a plausible exit strategy from Iraq now tied around the neck of the Bush White House, it would seem that happy days are here again for the Democrats.
Yet despite that backdrop, Democrats are - as usual, it seems - fighting among themselves over the party’s position on the war in Iraq, energy policies, and social issues like gay marriage.
Democrats need to make the next two election cycles a referendum on the prosecution of the war in Iraq and about whether the Republicans have been good and competent stewards of taxpayer funds during this long period of holding absolute sway over the federal government.
There is great infighting among Republicans from the conservative and moderate wings of the party over social issues like abortion and gay marriage and the politically connected issues of appointing federal judges who reflect conservative views on those wedge issues.
For their part, Democrats face an internal battle between the more liberal members of their party for whom abortion and gay rights are bedrock issues and party centrists who want to avoid polarizing issues and concentrate on making the war, the economy and energy prices the key campaign issues.
Democrats will need a net gain of 15 House seats and six Senate seats in the midterm elections to claim majorities.
The outcome of the midterm elections will serve as a barometer of whether voters in both “red” and “blue” states respond better to moderate Republicans or centrist Democrats or to liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.
Both parties will spend the next two years leading up to the 2008 presidential showdown honing their party’s message to suit what the voters indicate that they want.
Recent history suggests that another liberal/conservative confrontation awaits the nation in November 2008.
