Novak: The Lesson of Tuesday? Avoid Bush
Robert Novak paints a pretty gloomy portrait of POTUS prospects:
Eyeing the Democratic landslide in suburban northern Virginia just over the Potomac from Washington that gave Lt. Gov. Kaine the governorship, Republicans in Congress envision their own doom.
The antidote to avoid that fate is to keep as far away from President Bush as possible, a lesson underlined by the president’s failed election rescue mission for former state Attorney General Kilgore. The consequences may be profound. As his approval rating dipped, Bush increasingly has been treated in Congress as a lame duck. Tuesday’s Virginia outcome increases the propensity of Republican senators and House members not only to avoid their president on the campaign trail but also to ignore his legislative proposals
…In California, the defeat of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ballot issues represented a lost opportunity nationally to curb labor union political power.
Bush gets the blame. In the days immediately preceding Tuesday’s elections, Republican committee chairmen in Congress grew increasingly contemptuous of their president. Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, dismissed Bush’s Social Security plan as something to be shelved until after the 2008 presidential election. Rep. Joe Barton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, opposed Bush’s requested $7 billion to fight bird flu. Thanks to Virginia, the president can expect more of the same.
Novak’s sources are usually quite good (just ask Joe Wilson), but I don’t believe this analysis is accurate. It may be a snapshot of events as they stand at the moment, but events have a way of overturning the conventional wisdom applecart. Yes, Bush is, at the moment, a very unpopular president. No, he won’t ever get back above 50% approval, in all probability…but it would be a mistake for Republican candidates to pretend they aren’t Republicans just because our policies are temporarily out of favor. Voters won’t reward a politician that pushes the panic button, and if they want leaders who govern as Democrats, well, they’ll vote Democratic, then, won’t they?
More importantly, the 2006 midterms are a year away, and there’s plenty of time to regain control of the national debate, as I’ve said before…we’ll doubtless have more on this in the weeks ahead…
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