archived: 7 - 13 May, 2006         Back                 Next

Updated: May 11, 2006 

                        AVOID EXCESSIVE EXUBERANCE   

TPJ has consistently advised Democrats to avoid excessive exuberance from Bush’s falling approval ratings.  Newt Gingrich succinctly makes the point: 

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who engineered the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, says the GOP could lose its House majority in November unless its leaders energize the party's conservative base.  . . .

"Will they win? I think that's still up to the Republicans," Gingrich said Tuesday in a meeting with reporters and editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Gingrich said he agrees with political analysts who believe a substantial number of conservative voters -- upset over unbridled federal spending and unsecured national borders -- could sit out the mid-term elections, giving Democrats an edge in close House races that might otherwise go to Republicans.

Although recent polls show a majority of Americans would rather see Democrats controlling Congress, it's not too late to turn that around before November, Gingrich said.

"If you have the White House, the House and the Senate, and if you have the natural majority in the country, you always have the potential to be able to pose the election on your terms," he said.  . . .

"The problem you have right now is the conservative movement -- which is still very healthy in the country at large -- feels very abandoned in Washington," he told the Trib yesterday.

"Conservatives actually believe in a balanced budget as a moral issue. Conservatives actually believe you ought to control the border as a matter of national security. Conservatives are the people who pay the taxes. They're not the people who get the pork."

A recent CBS poll helps make the point: 

While Bush’s approval rating, as noted in the TPJ articles below, has fallen a full 6% since December (40.75% to 34%), the citizen response to the CBS poll is essentially unchanged.  Especially important, 82% of Republicans still support their Congressional candidates.   

Democrats will regain control of Congress if and only if we go out and make it happen – day by day.  

                        WHO’S COMING TO DINNER? 

Rupert Murdoch is sponsoring a campaign fundraiser for Sen. Clinton: 

Conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has agreed to have a re-election campaign fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., a report said Tuesday.

The move exemplifies a thaw in relations between Murdoch, whose New York Post sharply criticized Clinton's first run for the U.S. Senate, and the New York senator, who accused Murdoch's Fox News and other media of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" in 1998 against U.S. President Bill Clinton, the Financial Times reported.

The Clintons have courted Murdoch by attending News Corp. functions. The former president invited Murdoch to speak at the Global Initiative forum in September and has been invited to address News Corp.'s summer conference.

The July News Corp. fundraiser reflects Murdoch's views of Clinton as a senator rather than a potential presidential candidate, an observer told the newspaper.

"They have a respectful and cordial relationship," the observer said.

"Murdoch will be for the Republicans but he is also smart enough to know that the Republicans might not win," a media lobbyist said. 

One can only imagine the shock among conservatives.  Murdoch later tried to minimize the shock: 

“It will be pretty modest support,” Murdoch said. “It’s giving the opportunity to people in our office who want to join us at a breakfast.

“We think that she’s been effective on state issues and local issues here in a New York. She’s been an effective and good senator. And if people want to come to breakfast for $1,000, they’re welcome. It’s no big deal. It’s not a million-dollar raising. It’s got nothing to do with anything other than her Senate re-election.”                       

There is certainly more to this story than is being published.  Can Democrats expect a change of course in Fox News?

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UPDATED:  May 9, 2006                       

                        APRIL SHOWERS BRING ….. 

As we noted in the article below, April was not a good month for Bush’s public approval rating.  But April showers bring even worse news for Bush in the opening days of May.  First, the most recent USA Today/Gallup poll pegs Bush’s approval rating at 31%. 

Second, averaging all polls for May, TPJ pegs Bush’s approval rating at 34%, a new low.  Equally important, those who disapprove Bush’s handling of his office has crossed 60% for the first time.   

The May results thus far reflect Bush is clearly bleeding support among Republicans in substantial number. With the disapproval rate over 60%, it is apparent that public attitude is hardening.  Reuters correctly notes that: 

Bush's approval rating . . . tumbled on declining support from conservatives and Republicans. The poll found 52 percent of conservatives and 68 percent of Republicans approved of Bush's performance, record lows in both categories.

Bush's approval rating has been mired in the low and mid-30s in most surveys amid public unease about the Iraq war and rising gasoline prices. His plummeting standing has caused growing worry among Republicans about November's elections, when the balance of power in Congress will be up for grabs.                       

The message for Democrats is simple – keep making the case that Republican leadership has failed America miserably.                        

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                        BUSH 

Bush’s decline in the polls continues with his April average approval rating breaking through 36% for the first time.  The fifteen months that TPJ has tracked Bush’s poll numbers Bush’s approval rating has fallen each month except three.  From the broader perspective, it clearly apparent the public rejects Bush’s leadership and public attitudes have hardened over the last year.  One would reason that absent some dramatic national development that Bush will not easily recover. 

In recent weeks, Bush’s public strategy appears designed to emphasize issues that will stop the erosion of his conservative political base.  The administration has, among other issues: 

Emphasized opposition to singing the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish (even though Bush did so on the 2000 campaign trail);  

Opposed, including a veto threat, a supplemental authorization of funds for the war in Iraq that contained “earmarks” (pork spending); and  

VP Cheney is publicly lashing the Russian government for its alleged “manipulation” of energy resources as a political tool. 

The immigration issue plays to social conservatives’ jingoistic fears of losing our national identity; the threat to veto a critical authorization of war funds is designed to placate fiscally conservative Republicans who are sounding the alarm bells over Bush’s deficit spending; and VP Cheney’s provocative display of verve toward the Russians reaffirms Bush’s support of neoconservative foreign policy.  In both sum and substance, the administration is attempting knit together its base support with symbolic gestures.   

Will the new Bush strategy work?  Time will indeed tell.  Yet, looking at the numbers below, one would suspect that symbolic gestures will not arrest, long term, the fall of an administration that has lost public confidence.