Bush begins to lose support amongst conservative core

[Uiler]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/10/AR2006051002040.html

Disaffection over spending and immigration have caused conservatives to take flight from President Bush and the Republican Congress at a rapid pace in recent weeks, sending Bush's approval ratings to record lows and presenting a new threat to the GOP's 12-year reign on Capitol Hill, according to White House officials, lawmakers and new polling data.

Bush and Congress have suffered a decline in support from almost every part of the conservative coalition over the past year, a trend that has accelerated with alarming implications for Bush's governing strategy.

The Gallup polling organization recorded a 13-percentage-point drop in Republican support for Bush in the past couple of weeks. These usually reliable voters are telling pollsters and lawmakers they are fed up with what they see as out-of-control spending by Washington and, more generally, an abandonment of core conservative principles.

There are also significant pockets of conservatives turning on Bush and Congress over their failure to tighten immigration laws, restrict same-sex marriage, and put an end to the Iraq war and the rash of political scandals, according to lawmakers and pollsters.

Bush won two presidential elections by pursuing a political and governing model that was predicated on winning and sustaining the loyal backing of social, economic and foreign policy conservatives. The strategy was based on the belief that conservatives, who are often more politically active than the general public, could be inspired to vote in larger numbers and would serve as a reliable foundation for his presidency. The theory, as explained by Bush strategists, is that the president would enjoy a floor below which his support would never fall.

It is now apparent that this floor has weakened dramatically -- and collapsed in places.

"A lot of us have been like Paul Revere and sounding the alarm for three or four years," said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.). "Conservatives forgave Bush and Congress for our past mistakes because the war on terrorism was so important . . . but now there is a great deal of unhappiness. What you are going to increasingly see is a divided Republican Party."

Michael Franc, a top official at the Heritage Foundation, said his organization hosted 600 of its top conservative donors last week and heard more widespread complaining about Republicans than at any other point in the past 12 years. "It begins with spending, extends through immigration and results in a sense that we have Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee for the two parties," Franc said.

Ralph Sivillo, a 64-year-old retiree living in Monroe, N.Y., said he started turning against Bush in January. He said Democrats are beginning to look better to him. "I'm really dead against Bush at this point. What's he doing? He's doing nothing. Everybody's just bailing on him because they feel the same way."

"He's not well liked," said Douglas Giles, 47, a self-described conservative from Buffalo. "A lot of people don't think he's very good."

Michael Dimock of the Pew Research Center, a leading polling group, said one of the most striking findings of recent surveys is the growing number of conservatives who "don't see Bush as one of them" as they did earlier. Pew found that Bush has suffered a 24-point drop in his approval rating among voters who backed him in 2004: from 92 percent in January 2005 to 68 percent in March.

Frank Newport of the Gallup Organization cautioned against reading too much into Bush's recent loss of support among conservatives. He said the numbers tend to ebb and flow and must be confirmed over several months before it is possible to conclude that the president has suffered irreversible erosion.

Moreover, the public's view of the economy and Washington may have been soured by gasoline prices having topped $3 a gallon over the past month.

But GOP lawmakers and strategists, who have reviewed a series of polls released in recent weeks, said the results confirm what they are hearing from voters: Conservatives are demoralized and defecting in worrisome numbers. The most recent Associated Press poll found that Bush had a 52 percent approval rating among conservatives; only 33 percent had a favorable opinion of the Republican-run Congress.

"The problem in my mind, and the only way to explain the very significant erosion is just a disgust with what appears to be a complete abandonment of limited government," said former Republican congressman Pat Toomey, who runs the conservative Club for Growth. Toomey said commitment to smaller government has been the unifying idea for most elements of the GOP coalition since Ronald Reagan's presidency. "Republicans have finally had enough," he said, a sentiment echoed by several other conservative activists and lawmakers.

Since Bush took office, government spending has increased by more than 25 percent, the largest increase under any president since Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson. At the same time, Bush and the Republican Congress dramatically increased the government's role in, and overall spending on, education and Medicare by enacting the No Child Left Behind Act and new prescription drug entitlement for seniors. David A. Keene, head of the American Conservative Union, said there is a sense of flaccid leadership at the White House and in Congress that begets "things like frustration, which leads to disgust and apathy" among conservatives.

The immigration debate appears to be damaging Bush and GOP lawmakers, too. Conservative voters are saying they want swift congressional action to secure the border and enforce immigrations laws, but Bush and Congress are split over the best way to deal with illegal immigrants already in the country.

A new Zogby Interactive poll found that fewer than 25 percent of respondents who described themselves as conservative or very conservative approved of Bush's handling of the immigration debate. "Unfortunately, when it comes to controlling our borders, we are about a decade behind where we need to be," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.).

Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, and GOP leaders are well aware of the problem and are planning a summer offensive to win back conservatives with a mix of policy fights and warnings of how a Democratic Congress would govern. The plan includes votes on tax cuts, a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage, new abortion restrictions, and measures to restrain government spending.

It will be interesting to see if the figures are repeated in coming months to see if this is a sustained loss, but it's not good news for the GOP. Also, according to the article, the findings of the poll fit the general "chatter" amongst groups known to be highly Republican but of the fiscal conservative category. Even Karl Rove admits that there is a problem. I suspect that this is not a flash in the pan (otherwise Rove would have said something about the President not caring about poll numbers etc.)

Anyway, it seems that the principle Republicans abandoning Bush are the fiscal conservatives. It has been apparent for a long time now that the Republicans are no longer fiscal conservatives. In fact they are worse than Democrats. Democrats at least *tax* and spend. Republicans are no taxes and spend (just as much if not more than Democrats). I always wondered why they hadn't abandoned the party before.

The modern Republican party always seemed to be this weird hybrid of Christian fundamentalists and neo-conservatives, groups which are radical, call for massive amounts of money to be spent and intrusion into people's lives (both Americans and foreigners) and more traditional (for America) small government fiscal conservatives who don't give crap about people's personal lives or saving the world and just want the government to stay far far away from them. Given the way Bush has acted and the Republican party being dominated by the first type (look at all those who are in leadership positions...) I wondered how long it would take the small government, "the government should stay out of my business" type would crack.

The secondary reason is immigration. I guess Bush's attempt to please everyone ended up pleasing no-one. The left don't think it goes far enough and the right thinks it goes too too far.

 

[GenMarshall]

*sniff* *sniff* Do I smell that? I do smell the colapse of the Bush Administration .

 

[Kozmos]

Oh yes let me taste your tears oh yess yes your tears are so yummy bush supporters.

 

[GenMarshall]

Oh yes let me taste your tears oh yess yes your tears are so yummy bush supporters.

That just brought up a very disturbing clip of Cartman

 

[Uiler]

*sniff* *sniff* Do I smell that? I do smell the colapse of the Bush Administration .

No, not really. It's more it will make Bush a lame-duck than actual collapse Even if the Democrats win the next Congressional elections I doubt they'd go so far as to try to impeach him. Just start a lot of investigations and drag the nastier details into the light. A death by a thousand cuts.

It's more a problem for the GOP in general I think and will probably show up in the next elections and in future years.

I assume the disaffected Republicans aren't going to vote Democrat. However people who are apathetic and demoralised don't vote and well we all know the level of passion against Bush amongst Democrats. Basically it will affect turnout at the voting booths.

The other problem is by losing its more moderate members the GOP is going to become more and more dominated by extremists making it even harder to regain support later as it goes further and further away from the political centre. These sort of things gain a momentum of their own. The more extreme you appear, the more moderates you lose, which make you appear even more extreme, which mean the moderates you lose, which make you appear even more extreme, etc.

For an example to see what happens to a demoralised conservative party which loses its moderate members and is seen as not in touch with the centre, see the British Tories. The GOP are just lucky the Democrats have no Tony Blair, so the political exile might not last as long as the Tories have. It's more like the GOP is losing rather than the Democrats are winning (anyone know what the Democrats stand for? I sure don't).

 

[Phlegmak]

Pfft. Bush isn't going anywhere. If he murdered someone in the Oval Office, he still wouldn't be seeing jail time.

 

[shadowdude]

Not a surprize to me, he has been eroding my confidence in him for quite some time.

 

[Xanikk999]

The administration isnt going to collapse. He only has three more years anyway so i dont see what the fuss is.

Nobody from his administration has a rats ass of a chance of getting elected for president except for condoleeza rice maybe. So theres nothing to be worried about.

But it isnt collapsing.

 

[Xanikk999]

Pfft. Bush isn't going anywhere. If he murdered someone in the Oval Office, he still wouldn't be seeing jail time.

Only if it was covered up. Nixon and Clinton almost got impeached for less. So he would too unless they found a way to cover it up.

 

[IglooDame]

The modern Republican party always seemed to be this weird hybrid of Christian fundamentalists and neo-conservatives, groups which are radical, call for massive amounts of money to be spent and intrusion into people's lives (both Americans and foreigners) and more traditional (for America) small government fiscal conservatives who don't give crap about people's personal lives or saving the world and just want the government to stay far far away from them. Given the way Bush has acted and the Republican party being dominated by the first type (look at all those who are in leadership positions...) I wondered how long it would take the small government, "the government should stay out of my business" type would crack.

The secondary reason is immigration. I guess Bush's attempt to please everyone ended up pleasing no-one. The left don't think it goes far enough and the right thinks it goes too too far.

I agree with this - the Republicans have always had a huge Religious Right contingent in the party, and the alliance was uneasy but necessary; the recent rise of the neocon contingent and fall of the fiscal conservatives is stressing the party in ways that the Religious Right never could.

 

[Kayak]

I think this sort of dip is temporary. The hard right republicans want to stay in power. They will look for some excuse to come back to his side. Same thing for the christian conservatives, they have nowhere else to go. The wings need each other to be relevant.

 

[Cuivienen]

I wouldn't call it temporary, I'd call it underreporting. The UK has a consistent problem with Conservative Party voters not admitting to voting Conservative because the Conservatives have been wildly unpopular since their defeat in 1997.

 

[shortguy]

Oh yes let me taste your tears oh yess yes your tears are so yummy bush supporters.

Oh man, that was one sick episode. It made me legitimately uncomfortable.

On topic: This sort of fragile coalition is nothing new. Compare the New Deal coalition, made of (among others) southern conservative whites and northern blacks.

 

[VoodooAce]

Beginning? I'd say this administration is in the middle of a monumental collapse. It is condemned and tagged for demolition.

I'm curious to see how many running for office this year welcome him on the campaign trail and how many don't. I'm sure plenty will ask him to stay away....far, far away.

Oh yes let me taste your tears oh yess yes your tears are so yummy bush supporters.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Bush-Supporter-Tears.

 

[Dreadnought]

Here we go again

I am loosing a little faith in him, but still he's better than Kerry...

 

[VoodooAce]

Here we go again

I am loosing a little faith in him, but still he's better than Kerry...

Kerry isn't the president of an administration that's circling the drain, though, is he?

 

[GenMarshall]

Here we go again

I am loosing a little faith in him, but still he's better than Kerry...

I still dont get what is so attractive with Bush with the religious people .

 

[cgannon64]

Seriously, who makes up this 31% that still likes Bush? They must at least have a telephone. Perhaps that's the only link they have to the outside world?

 

[Brian_B]

It will be interesting to see if the figures are repeated in coming months to see if this is a sustained loss, but it's not good news for the GOP.

Maybe yes, maybe no. The biggest flaw in looking at poll numbers when it comes to people's view of "Congress" as a whole is that Congress is, in fact, not a singular entity. It all boils down to individual races where many people are just apt to vote for their candidate blaming the problems on "those other guys." Repeated 468 times (House seats + a third of the Senate) you usually get the status quo again. Of course, we've seen examples of radical shifts before, usually in targeted races where heavy amounts of party finances and resources go into unseating certain incumbants.

I think 2008 will be where we see a big shift in government (if indeed it happens). The Republican Presidential primaries will define the party for the signicant future because I do not see a Bush-type candidate in the race that will do nothing but play the middle-of-the-road card.

 

[Brian_B]

Oh yes let me taste your tears oh yess yes your tears are so yummy bush supporters.

Eh, most people in America today vote based on party ideology. I didn't think Bush would be a great president by any stature but I knew, by and large, the Executive branch would be stocked with people whose policies I did agree with. From my perspective, my vote for him already paid off with the two Supreme Court appointees. I'm a legal conservative so I'm quite pleased.

*sniff* *sniff* Do I smell that? I do smell the colapse of the Bush Administration.

He's got two years left in office? How could it "collapse?" LBJ was in much more dire straights back in the 60's and eventually, he served out his term without spontaneously combusting.