His 'problems' were well known prior to this year's primary.....
Representative Charles B. Rangel, the dean of New York's Congressional delegation, said on Wednesday that he would leave Congress if Democrats failed to win control of the House of Representatives in the fall elections.
Corker Enters Senate Contest With Slight Edge Over Ford
Tennessee Republican Bob Corker ?- a former Chattanooga mayor and wealthy real estate investor ?- emerged from a bruising primary campaign Thursday to win his party's nomination to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Bill Frist, the outgoing Senate majority leader. Corker will face 9th District Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., who won a more routine victory in the Democratic primary.
Corker defeated a pair of former House members, Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary, who had expended much of their campaign effort trying to discredit the well-funded front-runner.
Corker [..] had 48 percent of the vote with 91 percent of precincts reporting. Bryant [..] was second with 34 percent. Hilleary [..] was well off the pace with 17 percent. [..]
Ford and his Democratic allies hope that the strongly negative tone of the Republican primary will help level the playing field for the fall campaign.
From the earliest days of the campaign, Corker exhibited impressive fundraising abilities ?- supplemented by seven-figure contributions from his own pockets ?- that establish him as the candidate to beat.
It also made him the principal target for his opponents. Though competing with each other for the mantle of staunchest conservative in the race, Hilleary and Bryant appeared at times to team up against Corker to erode his support among the Republican primary base. In fact, Bryant had tried without success to convince Hilleary to quit the race and avoid splitting the anti-Corker vote, a concern that seems prescient in light of Corker's apparent plurality victory.
Both tried to persuade voters than Corker wasn't fervent enough in his opposition to abortion, and cited a Chattanooga property tax increase implemented when he was mayor to imply that he is not a fiscal conservative. [..]
Cohen's Win in Memphis Has Ford Family Singin' the Blues
Aug. 04, 2006
Veteran state Sen. Steve Cohen's liberal record and long rapport with African-American residents in Memphis enabled him to win Thursday's 15-candidate Democratic primary for Tennessee's open 9th District seat. The win positions Cohen to become a political rarity: a white House member representing a black-majority district.
Cohen ?- who had 31 percent of the vote to 25 percent for the runner-up, airline executive Nikki Tinker ?- will share the Democratic ticket with the man he is seeking to succeed, five-term Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., who easily won the Democratic nomination for the contest to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Bill Frist. [..]
Read the whole article
GOP hurt by redrawn Texas district
Fri Aug 4, 10:04 PM ET
AUSTIN, Texas - Three federal judges on Friday reunited a south Texas county into one congressional district under a Supreme Court-ordered map revision, a move that solidified Hispanic voting strength and made one Republican incumbent's re-election campaign more difficult. [..]
The revision came after the Supreme Court in June found that the congressional map drawn by Republican state lawmakers in 2003 unconstitutionally diluted Hispanic voting power by dividing Hispanics in Webb County into two different districts represented by GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla (news, bio, voting record) and Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar.
The new map places Webb County, which includes Laredo, entirely in Cuellar's district, and gives Bonilla the heavily Hispanic and Democratic neighborhoods of south Bexar County. [..]
Bonilla's district is now more evenly divided between Democratic and Republican voters. Bonilla, whose support among Hispanic Democrats has been dropping, also is seeing his district's Hispanic voting-age population rise from 51 percent to 61 percent. [..]
Because the districts have been redrawn after the primary elections, the seats are open now to anyone who wants to run. Candidates have until Aug. 25 to file for the race. A special election will be held alongside the general election for congressional seats in the affected districts. [..]
GOP Leaders Are Hoping to Turn the War Into a Winner
A strategy memo says Iraq may rouse voters. A recent poll shows it may not be to their benefit.
By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
August 8, 2006
CRAWFORD, Texas ?- Some Republican candidates are distancing themselves from President Bush in fear of voter discontent with the war in Iraq. But a new GOP strategy memo argues that the war could prove to be an advantage for many Republican candidates, citing it as one of the most effective issues that will excite the party base in November.
The memo, based on a Republican National Committee poll of GOP voters and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, lists Bush's handling of "foreign threats" as the No. 1 motivator of the Republican base, specifically citing his leadership on Iraq.
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"Large majorities report satisfaction with the president's commitment to defeat the terrorists in Iraq and his leadership in the war on terror, in general," according to the memo sent Wednesday to Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman from GOP pollster Fred Steeper.
The memo suggested that Republicans could motivate their base in the upcoming elections by talking about foreign threats and national security issues, including Iraq and the potential nuclear threat from Iran, and by drawing contrasts with Democrats in those areas. It said "a huge 87% of the base expresses extremely strong feelings" about national security issues.
The memo underscores the belief among top White House and GOP strategists that the war, despite the rising death toll and mounting public anxiety, could be the party's biggest advantage in the fight to retain control of Congress in the November elections.
Well, they sure havent got much else to run on..
Connecticut exit poll's surprising results
A Connecticut exit poll, conducted by CBS News and the New York Times and obtained by Political Wire, supports some important (preliminary) conclusions, including several that conflict with the emerging conventional wisdom:
1) Seventy-eight percent of primary voters opposed the decision to go to war in Iraq -- no surprise there. But of those, only 60 percent cast their votes for Lamont, which means that 40 percent of war opponents voted for Lieberman. That fact, by itself, demonstrates that the Lamont win (and the Lieberman defeat) is hardly due exclusively -- or even primarily -- to the "single-issue" anger over the war, given that four of 10 war opponents voted for Lieberman.
2) Apparently, a more significant factor than the Iraq war was opposition to President Bush generally. Fifty-nine percent of all voters said that Lieberman "was too close to the President," and although no exact numbers are provided, it was that group which "voted overwhelmingly for Lamont." The most reliable factor in the Lamont win seems to have been not opposition to the war specifically, but a more generalized disapproval of President Bush and of Lieberman's support for the president.
3) Sixty-one percent of voters "rejected the notion of Lieberman running as an Independent candidate in the fall." That number is sure to grow as a) the image of Lieberman as the loser seeps in and b) most of the Democratic establishment abandons him and actively supports Lamont.
A new poll has ominous signs for Republicans
There are several noteworthy aspects to the new Washington Post/ABC News poll released today. Almost all of them are ominous signs for Republicans:
1) A majority of voters now disapprove of the way the president is handling every issue they were asked about, including the "U.S. campaign against terrorism" (by a 47 to 50 percent margin). The percent approving of the president's approach to terrorism is the lowest since this poll began asking the question in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
2) A plurality of voters (46-38) trust Democrats more than Republicans to "do a better job handling the U.S. campaign against terrorism." That is the largest advantage, by far, that Democrats have enjoyed on this issue. In fact, Republicans have had a huge advantage in this category ever since the 9/11 attacks (the GOP advantage in October 2002, for instance, was 61 to 26 in October 2002; the following month, Democrats lost control of the Senate), and the first Democratic advantage on terrorism ever (at least for this poll) was in April 2006, when it was one point. The gap has now grown to eight points.
3) An overwhelming majority of Americans continue to disapprove of the way the President is handling Iraq (36-62). And the unpopularity of the Iraq war itself is staggering. By a margin of 59 to 39 percent, Americans answer "no" to this question: "All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not?" Not only are "antiwar" sentiments the solidly mainstream position, but those who believe that the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do are part of an ever-shrinking minority.
4) There is a surprising evenhandedness about the Israel-Hezbollah war. Forty-six percent say that Israel and Hezbollah bear equal blame for the war (while 7 percent say Israel bears more blame, and 39 percent blame Hezbollah). And a plurality (48-47) say that Israel "is not justified in bombing Hezbollah targets located in areas where civilians may be killed or wounded" even though the question advises that "Israel says it has been bombing rocket launchers and other Hezbollah targets located in civilian areas."
Only 38 percent believe that "Israel is doing all it reasonably can do to try to avoid civilian casualties in Lebanon," while 54 percent believe it should do more. By contrast, 58 percent believe the U.S. is doing all it can to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq. Perhaps most important, even those Americans who favor the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon overwhelmingly oppose (38-59) the inclusion of U.S. troops in such a force.
(5) Reflecting what I believe is the principal hurdle Democrats must overcome, a plurality (48-47) of Americans believe that "the Democrats ... are not offering the country a clear direction that's different from the Republicans." Given how unpopular the Republicans are, it is just inexcusable that Democrats are not aggressively distinguishing themselves from GOP policies.
This failure is primarily due to the fact that Democrats inexplicably continue to follow the chronically wrong and hopelessly fear-driven advice of their Beltway consultants -- echoed by the baseless warnings issued in the last couple of days by Marty Peretz and Cokie Roberts -- which instructs Democrats to avoid any decisive opposition to Republican policies (especially foreign policies) lest they alienate mainstream Americans (who, as this poll conclusively demonstrates, themselves have decisively rejected those very GOP policies).
(6) Finally, here is the ideological breakdown of the respondents to this poll: Only 18 percent described themselves as "liberal," while 42 percent self-identified as "moderate" and 38 percent as "conservative." It is, therefore, quite difficult to argue (or at least it ought to be) that opposition to the war in Iraq or strong disapproval of President Bush is confined to "liberal" corners.
Big Batch of Rating Changes Reflects Stronger Democratic Breeze
The following is a roundup of changes that CQPolitics.com is making to its forecasts of three Senate races and 15 House races. The changes are the result of a thorough review of all races that we've done as part of an elections overview that will be published in the Aug. 14 issue of CQ Weekly and subsequently on CQPolitics.com.
These forecast changes are the result of a one-time systematic examination of all the races at a key moment in the campaign. They are not the result of any single piece of new information. We generally prefer not to issue ratings changes in bulk.
The ratings changes below include summaries of the reasoning behind each switch. Stories containing more detailed explanations will follow in the coming days.
Read on...
Walberg, a minister and former state lawmaker, attacked what he called Schwarz' liberal voting record and made campaign issues of Schwarz' support of abortion rights and his opposition to a U.S. constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
In suburban Denver, Perlmutter, a former state senator, emerged as the Democratic candidate in Colorado's 7th District after attacking his main rival, Lamm, for her willingness to forge bipartisan compromises with Republicans. Perlmutter had 53 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Lamm, with 92 percent of precincts reporting.
While Perlmutter and O'Donnell may have to wait late into the night on Nov. 7 to find out which one of them will make the trip to Washington, Republican state Sen. Doug Lamborn can confidently start packing his bags now. He almost certainly clinched a berth in the 110th Congress by narrowly winning a six-candidate primary in the 5th District, a Republican bastion centered in Colorado Springs that was left open by retiring 10-term GOP Rep. Joel Hefley.
Lamborn's ticket-punching victory did not come easily. He took 27 percent of the vote to edge Jeff Crank, a former vice president of the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce who had 25 percent. [..]
Crank is a former top Hefley aide, and he secured his former boss' support. Crank also won the most delegate support at a pre-primary nominating convention in May, but Lamborn finished a close second.
Lamborn's win represented a victory for the Club for Growth, the conservative group that endorsed Lamborn and criticized Crank on fiscal issues. That helped make this an especially strong night for the Club for Growth, which also backed conservative Tim Walberg in his successful challenge to moderate Republican Rep. Joe Schwarz in Michigan's 7th District.
The House Conservatives Fund, a political action committee that is linked to members of the congressional Republican Study Committee, also backed Lamborn.
As every weatherman knows, it's hard to make an accurate forecast more than a couple of days out. To say what's coming your way three months down the road is well nigh impossible.
Electoral politics is no different. If the 2006 midterm election were held today, tomorrow or even next week, it would be safe to say that Republicans would hold on ?- barely, but with just enough room to spare ?- to their majorities in both the House and Senate. [T]he Democrats would still need a net gain of at least 15 seats to take over the House and a net of six to retake the Senate. Those are not impossible numbers to achieve, to be sure, and the minority has picked up that many seats, and more, in midterms past. But not often, and certainly not in recent years.
But the elections to fill all 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats are still a dozen weeks away. [..] It would be a fool's errand to say with any degree of confidence that the forecast for today will hold beyond tomorrow.
All you can do, really, is figure out which way the wind is blowing. And the wind that's blowing today has the GOP running, not walking, for protective cover. All current indicators suggest that the Big One ?- hurricane, tidal wave, tsunami or tornado; pick your own catastrophic metaphor ?- is gathering in the middle distance. [..]
Great political shifts can arise and culminate over a very short period of time. Hardly anyone saw the "GOP Revolution" coming before October in 1994 [..]. A similar sea change occurred almost without warning in the last two elections of the 1960s [..].
The House Projection
So far this year, the trend lines have gone almost exclusively in favor of the Democrats [..]. As a result, the Republicans are currently on course to win only 220 House seats in the 110th Congress ?- and that's if they take every one of the races that CQ currently rates as safe, favored or leaning in their favor. That total, of course, is just two seats more than the number required to claim a majority in the House.
There are also 13 contests ?- 12 for seats held by Republicans and one by a Democrat ?- rated as too close to call. f the GOP picks up half of them, it can expect to go into 2007 with [..] 227 seats [..].
But the bulk of the tossups could slip away from the Republicans [..]. In the big swing years of the recent past, including the Republican upsurge in the 1994 "Contract With America" election and the Democrats' rout in 1974 just after Watergate forced President Richard M. Nixon's resignation, nearly all of the most hotly contested races broke in favor of the victorious party.
Just as worrisome for Republicans, they hardly have a lock on the 220 races now tilted in their favor. In 20 of them, the Republican has only a slight edge [..]. And so the Democrats could win any or all of them if their candidates' strengths gain a bit of traction ?- or if the voters' mood shifts much more against the GOP, or against incumbents in general.
Only 10 seats now held by Democrats, by contrast, are that closely competitive.
Beyond these races that are tossups or "leaning" to one party or the other is a third category: contests in which the front-running candidate has serious advantages that make election likely, but where other factors make an upset plausible. And here is where the partisan imbalance is greatest of all: There are 25 seats where Republicans are favored ?- pretty solid, but not quite safe ?- but only eight seats where Democrats are similarly vulnerable to an upset.
Beyond that, almost all the races that have become more competitive in recent weeks have tilted toward the Democrats. Since CQ Weekly's last overview of the campaign, on April 24, the political staff's ratings of 26 House races and six Senate races have changed ?- in favor of the Democrats in 25 of the House races and four of the Senate races. [..]
Add all that up and it's clear why Republicans have so much to fear. Of the year's most closely contested House races, 32 are in Republican-held districts, compared with 11 in Democratic-held districts. When you include the long-shot challenges, a total of 57 GOP seats [..] are currently in play, to just 19 [..] for the Democrats.
Those 76 competitive and still-kicking races give the Democrats a surprising advantage for November when you consider what they take with them going in: Democrats hold 184 safe seats, which they are virtually guaranteed to keep. To reach the magic number of 218, they need to win only 34 of the 76 competitive contests, or fewer than half.
The Senate Projection
The math is considerably more favorable for the Republicans in their bid to keep hold of the Senate, where they occupy 55 of the 100 seats today. They will still have 52 next year if you start with the 40 GOP senators whose seats aren't on the ballot this year and add the dozen contests in which the Republicans are favored or the races are at least leaning their way.
But in the past month, the number of races in which Republicans are favored has dropped by two, and in both cases the campaigns have become too close to call. One is in Montana, where Republican Conrad Burns' bid for a fourth term has drawn intense opposition [..]. The other is in [..] Rhode Island, where the centrist Lincoln Chafee will probably be challenged by former state Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse [..] ?- that is, if Chafee staves off aggressive opposition in his own primary from Mayor Steve Laffey of Cranston [..].
Democrats are the incumbent party in just one state where the Senate seat is now a tossup: Minnesota, where Mark Dayton is retiring.
Still, the competitive balance in the national Senate campaign is closer than in the House campaign: Nine Democratic seats and eight Republican seats are at least moderately competitive. [..]
But recent Senate election history suggests a burgeoning trend that has to be worrisome for Republicans: One party ends up dominating the closest contests. In 2000, the Democrats gained four seats to pull into a 50-50 tie with the GOP by triumphing in five of the seven contests decided by margins of 5 percentage points or less. Two years later, Republicans won back control by taking five of the seven closest races, and they expanded their majority in 2004 by winning five of the six closest campaigns.
Still, retaking the Senate should prove difficult for the Democrats, who will be operating with little margin for error. Because of their success six years ago, they are defending more seats now: 18 to the Republicans' 15. For the six-seat net gain they need to grab control, Democrats must win 40 percent of all GOP seats that are up this year, and that's only if the Democrats manage to hold all of their own seats. [..]
The quest is even more problematic because the Senate campaign is being staged mainly on territory that is difficult for the Democrats. Only three of the Republican seats are in states that John Kerry carried in the 2004 presidential election: Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Maine. [..]
The [others] are all in states that voted twice for Bush [..]: Tennessee [..]; Missouri [..]; and Ohio [..].
For a true shot at the majority, the Democrats may have to boost their chances significantly in two states where their candidates are currently long shots: Arizona, where developer Jim Pederson is challenging two-term incumbent Jon Kyl; and Virginia,where author and former Navy Secretary Jim Webb is opposing George Allen's quest for a second term. [..]
SUGAR LAND ?- Citing his desire to support the Republican Party in its difficult write-in campaign to hold the congressional seat vacated by Tom DeLay, Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace withdrew from the race Monday. The move leaves Houston Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs as the sole Republican write-in candidate ?- a condition, Wallace said, for $3 million in campaign funding from the national GOP. The state party endorsed Sekula-Gibbs' candidacy last week at a meeting of GOP precinct chairs in the 22nd Congressional District. Wallace said he will support her.
"Now is the time for all Republicans to unite around one candidate and preserve our conservative voice in Congress," Wallace said during a news conference at Sugar Land City Hall.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4132280.html
Gathering Storm
By Charlie Cook, National Journal
Time is running out for Republicans. Unless something dramatic happens before Election Day, Democrats will take control of the House. And the chances that they'll seize the Senate are rising toward 50-50.
The electoral hurricane bearing down on the GOP looks likely to be a Category 4 or 5, strong enough to destroy at least one of the party's majorities. The political climate feels much as it did before previous elections that produced sizable upheavals, such as in 1994, when Democrats lost 52 House seats, eight Senate seats, and control of both chambers.
In the past two weeks, polling by CBS News/New York Times, NBC News/Wall Street Journal, and The Cook Political Report/RT Strategies found that just 27 to 28 percent of voters think the country is headed in the right direction. Between 60 and 66 percent say we are "on the wrong track." These are the kinds of "time for a change" numbers associated with tidal-wave elections.
In those same three polls, approval ratings for Congress ranged from 25 to 28 percent, with disapproval ratings of 57 to 60 percent. Keep in mind the Gallup Poll's rule of thumb: When Congress's job-approval rating is 40 percent or higher, the average midterm election net change in the House is just five seats; when its approval is below 40 percent, the average net change is 29 seats.
And significantly, in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, just 38 percent of voters said their representative "deserves re-election"; 48 percent said it is "time to give a new person a chance." These numbers don't indicate a status quo election.
Consider also the venerable "generic congressional ballot test" question. Those same three polls show Democrats holding an advantage of 10 to 13 points. Other polls peg the Democratic advantage as low as 8 points or as high as 16. Looking at all eight July polls, the Democrats' average lead was 11 points.
Since the midterm elections is typically a referendum on the party in power and, more specifically, on the president, George W. Bush's approval ratings are a factor in how the Republicans are likely to fare this fall.
In the most recent polls by CBS/New York Times, NBC/Wall Street Journal, Cook Political Report/RT, Gallup, and Fox News, Bush's approval ratings range from 36 to 40 percent. His July average in all major national polls covered by PollingReport.com was 38 percent, exactly the same as the trend estimate computed by the University of Wisconsin's Charles Franklin on his Web site called PoliticalArithmetik.blogspot.com.
President Clinton's lowest job-approval in the Gallup Poll at any point in 1994 was 39 percent. Again, Bush's numbers are consistent with a tidal wave.
What about voter turnout? In both the Cook/RT and the NBC/WSJ surveys, when voters were asked to rank, on a scale of 1 to 10, how interested they were in the upcoming elections, Democrats were much more interested.
Voters ranking themselves as most engaged (10) favored Democrats by 14 points in one poll and 18 points in the other. As RT Strategies pollster Thom Riehle puts it, "We are approaching the point where most Democrats can't wait to vote, and some Republicans are embarrassed about voting. The effect of lopsided partisan interest in voting is magnified in low-turnout midterms, such as in 1974 and 1994."
Finally, money counts. When you add up the June 30 cash-on-hand figures for the two parties' House and Senate campaign committees, Republicans have only an $11 million edge -- $91 million compared with $80 million. During the past nine election cycles, the GOP generally spent 50 to 100 percent more than the Democrats. That's not happening this year.
Looking at the House race by race, we rate 15 Republican-held seats and no Democratic ones as "toss-ups." House Democrats need a 15-seat gain, and it wouldn't take much of a wave for them to get it. Even without a big wave, Democrats could add five of the six seats they need to take over the Senate. And it's important to remember the typical domino effect in Senate elections -- the closest races tend to break overwhelmingly in the same direction.
The bottom line: Unless something happens to interrupt current patterns, the House will turn over and the GOP will hang on to the Senate by a thread.
Does ?'Majority Of the Majority' Have a Future?
All of the talk in political circles is about whether the country is preparing to sweep the Republicans out of power in the House and hand control over to the Democrats. But there is less talk of another scenario that, for now at least, is just as plausible: a near-miss that would leave Republicans in charge again, but just barely.
If the GOP hangs on to win all the races that are at least leaning its way at the moment ?- and loses all the tossups and the contests where the Democrats are maintaining an edge ?- they would go into the 110th Congress with 220 seats, just two more than the minimal majority. [..]
But the fact that the Republicans' hold on power is so precarious right now raises the possibility that it could be just as shaky after Election Day. Republicans could find themselves in a scenario that in some ways is almost as bad as losing the House: holding on to power and the attendant responsibility but with diminished leverage for carrying it out. [..]
Hastert has managed thin majorities before. In 2001 and 2002, there were just 221 House Republicans [..]. But he had two significant advantages at the time. President Bush was new and extraordinarily popular after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Republicans were willing to rally around his agenda with few exceptions. And whenever that was not enough, Hastert had the strong-arm whip operation of Tom DeLay to help keep rank-and-file Republicans in line.
Both advantages are gone. Bush is no longer a politically strong commander in chief, but an unpopular president who will be entering his final, lame-duck two years in office. And DeLay is out of office, his operation replaced by a newer leadership team that doesn't have as strong a track record in holding Republican votes together.
"In a way, the worst of all nightmares into '08 and on would be for the Republican majority to come out of the '06 elections greatly diminished but not extinguished ?- control the gavel but not the majority," said Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Even with the 231-seat majority Republicans have now, Hastert's job got harder last year after the most conservative members of his caucus ?- members of the Republican Study Committee ?- became fed up with the compromises they felt they had made in behalf of Bush's first-term agenda, such as expanding Medicare to cover prescription drugs and expanding the federal role in education with the No Child Left Behind law. Meanwhile, moderates have flexed their muscles this year by fighting cuts in social spending and forcing the leadership to embrace a minimum wage increase it opposed.
If Republicans end up with a thinner House majority and no popular presidential agenda to rally around, Hastert and his leadership team will have even less leverage to contain conservative rebellions, or even moderate rebellions, than they do now. [..]
A wafer-thin margin of control, of course, means less in the Senate, especially in an era when both sides have decided to use their parliamentary powers to set 60 votes as the threshold for doing anything remotely controversial ?- meaning that the majority leader must find help from at least a few minority party members almost daily.
In the House, the first post-election decision the leadership would have to make is what lesson to draw if the Republicans suffer significant but not majority-ending losses. Their governing strategy could depend on how they settle a debate already starting in the GOP ranks: Is their majority in trouble because they have moved too far to the right, or because they have made too many compromises that undermine basic conservative principles?
Many of the members most vulnerable to defeat are Northeastern moderates ?- among them Christopher Shays, Rob Simmons and Nancy L. Johnson of Connecticut ?- and lawmakers and political analysts generally agree that such moderates, many of whom represent areas with a Democratic lean, will take a disproportionate share of the losses Nov. 7. If so, the Republicans that remain in the House will be, on balance, even more conservative than they are now. [..]
[M]any of the conservatives who were left would argue that the losses happened because the base was demoralized. They'd say the solution is a back-to-the-basics approach that stresses tax cuts and spending restraint and rejects departures from conservative doctrine. [..] Rep. Tom Feeney of Florida, a member of the Republican Study Committee [says,] "The base is not upset with conservative congressmen."
"The base may sit on its hands for the moderates," he said. "That's not something I wish for, but it may happen."
But there are plenty of conservatives in competitive races too, such as John Hostettler in Indiana and J.D. Hayworth in Arizona. And moderates aren't buying the argument that a smaller majority would mean the party has sold out its conservative base too often. If anything, they'd tell Hastert the party needs to broaden its appeal. "There are just not enough conservative districts to make a majority party," said Castle. "If we go further to the right, we'll be a minority party for sure."
The key to the Republicans' majority status is not the districts that voted solidly for Bush, he said, but the districts that voted against Bush but still returned Republican incumbents to Congress. "Moderates have to run far ahead of the president to get re-elected, in some cases 20 to 25 points ahead. And they do it," said Castle. "That says to me that there's some appeal to the country."
Even the most conservative House Republicans don't argue the point, and they say they're doing everything they can to make sure the moderates keep their seats. "While we may have our disagreements with Chris Shays and Ray LaHood and Rob Simmons, everyone in the conference is dedicated to making sure they get re-elected," said Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who chairs the Republican Study Committee's budget task force.
Still, it is Hastert who will have to referee the family fights if Republicans hold on to the House by only a small margin. As Republicans begin to make the transition from Bush to searching for their next leader in 2008, they may have less of a reason to close ranks on tough votes and even less of an agenda to pull them together.
That reality isn't likely to diminish the Republicans' energy in fighting to save their majority. But it is likely to diminish their energy if they succeed. The Democrats know what they want out of this election: power. The Republicans already have it, and even if they hang on, they may end up wondering if the fight was really worth it.
"Republicans have put together a superior ground organization [..]," said Lawrence Jacobs, a political scientist [..]. "Republicans are quite effective at micro-targeting its slices of the electorate."
Republicans, in fact, are staking their fortune on a focus on issues specific to their own states and districts ?- and their arguments about why their particular candidates are best suited to address those issues ?- to thwart the Democrats' efforts to turn this midterm into a national referendum on Bush and unified GOP control in Washington.
"The prospects of holding the majority are excellent," said Republican Phil English, who is a prohibitive favorite in his own bid for a seventh House term in northwestern Pennsylvania. "That's because it's coming down to a series of local races, which are breaking very well and are ultimately local in character. . . . It comes down to each individual Republican candidate offering their positive vision and where they're headed."
Or as Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, the blunt-spoken chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, recently put it: "House contests are like horse races ?- local horse races. And right now, I like the horses I've got."
GOP Dips in Religion Poll
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 24, 2006
Filed at 8:54 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of people who consider the Republican Party friendly to religion has dipped below half in the last year, with declines among white evangelicals and white Catholics. But the GOP remains far more closely tied to religion than the Democratic Party.
The number of people who consider the GOP friendly to religion dropped from 55 percent to 47 percent -- with a 14-point drop among white evangelical conservatives and an 11-point drop among white Catholics, according to the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Only a fourth, 26 percent, considered the Democratic Party friendly to religion -- about the same as last year.
Religious voters have been a key voting bloc in recent elections with the most devout Protestant, Catholic and evangelical voters leaning strongly toward Republicans.
''The Republicans had done a good job of mobilizing those two groups in 2004 and that may be cooling a bit now,'' said Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center said, referring to white evangelicals and white Catholics
Bush got 78 percent of the white evangelical vote and 56 percent of the white Catholic vote in 2004, according to exit polls.
The survey found that about four in 10 Christians identify themselves as ''born again'' Christians or evangelicals, while a third describe themselves as ''progressive Christians.'' The conservative Christians are a far more unified group politically than the progressives, however.
The poll of 2,003 adults was conducted July 6-19 in cooperation with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
