csua.org/u/gx8 -> www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferguson18sep18,0,6089465.column
Niall Ferguson: Niall Ferguson: The GOP Will Hang on All those predictions of an autumn of discontent will likely go up in smoke. September 18, 2006 WILL IT ONLY be the leaves that descend this fall? Or could some Republican legislators also end up being swept into piles and incinerated? At first sight, the omens are good for the Dems in November's midterm elections. Gallup's national poll of voting intentions has given them a 10-point lead over the Republicans for most of the last year. The obvious explanation is gloom about Iraq, which remains the No. President Bush defended his policy trenchantly in the run-up to the fifth anniversary of 9/11, but his approval rating has improved only slightly as a result. If that proves to be the key issue of this campaign, the Democrats look unstoppable. Voters give them a 12-point advantage when it comes to handling the economy, and twice as big a lead on Social Security. Small wonder so many of my liberal colleagues have a spring in their step. Asked if they feel more enthusiastic than usual about voting, 56% of Democrats say they do, compared with just 43% of Republicans. For three good reasons, however, I expect the Dems to be disappointed -- just as they were two years ago. First, on closer inspection, Iraq is still far from being a vote winner for Democrats. Many Americans still believe that invading Iraq was a rational response to 9/11, even if evidence to link Saddam Hussein to the perpetrators is conspicuous by its absence. So they buy Bush's notion of Iraq as the "central front" in the war on terror. Moreover, when asked which party they trust to wage that war, they prefer the Republicans to the Democrats by a margin of 14%. Crucially, if asked to choose between a Republican who wants to maintain troop levels in Iraq and a Democrat seeking "immediate and orderly withdrawal," 48% of voters plump for the Republican and just 41% for the Democrat. If the Republicans can portray their opponents as favoring withdrawal, they win the Iraq argument. Second, despite widespread fears over the summer, the US economy looks to be landing softly. The stock market has bounced back since the dog days of July. The threatened real estate crash has failed to materialize, though house prices have certainly cooled. And to appease those Americans who blame their economic difficulties on immigration, squabbling Republicans in Congress have sidelined the president's plan for a partial amnesty for illegal immigrants. In most democratic systems, of course, that kind of internal dissension causes parties to lose credibility. But thanks to the constitutional separation of powers, party unity matters less here. Indeed, under Karl Rove's direction, the Republican Party is adopting its own strategy of separation, allowing legislators to do whatever it takes -- including, if necessary, criticizing their own president -- to ensure their own political survival. This is the third and most important reason to expect a non-event in November. IT'S AN OLD ADAGE that in the United States all politics are local. That's even more true today than it was a generation ago. Gerrymandering has tended to increase the political homogeneity of most electoral districts. This in turn increases the chances that incumbents will be reelected. Once a district has a critical mass of either Republicans or Democrats, the key to victory is to mobilize the "base" of active voters. There's much less need to woo floating voters from the center, who may in any case fail to turn out on election day. This trend explains why there's less bipartisan cooperation in Congress than there used to be. It also explains why legislators don't hesitate to badmouth the president if they feel he's out of tune with local sentiment. Lincoln D Chafee of Rhode Island comfortably saw off a conservative challenger in a primary. Chafee, deemed more palatable to general election voters in November, was backed by the national party despite being one of the party's inveterate Bush bashers. The big question is whether or not the strategy of separation can work in two years' time, when voters have to elect a new president. For the Republican candidate in '08, it might actually be better if the Democrats did well in the midterms, because a brief return to power on the Hill would expose their chronic incoherence, making the case for a Republican comeback two years down the line. The leaves may be falling in George Bush's America, but the Republicans look like they're hanging on.
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