A GOP Comeback?
In the midst of all the Republican gloom-and-doom forecasts for 2006, Deborah Orin divines a change in the tide:
…Republicans seem to have grasped that this is the post-Bush era so they’re successfully decoupling themselves from Bush and snuggling up to the more popular Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
But Republicans aren’t dumping or dissing Bush, they’re finding a McCain-style path through quicksand, supportive of the president while disagreeing with him on key issues. Voters like loyalty so long as it’s not blind.
Two other key factors:
The Bush economy looks pretty good, and there’s a rising heartland rage over illegal immigration.
Fred Barnes sees another hopeful sign: a Karl Rove who has regained the freedom to focus on politics:
By giving up his role as deputy White House chief of staff, Rove has been freed to do what he does best: shape big issues and develop strategies to win elections.
In the mini-shuffle announced yesterday, Rove was a winner. No longer will he have to honcho a tedious policy process at the White House, which he’s been doing in President Bush’s second term. He now will resume the freewheeling role and significant, but limited, responsibilities he held during the first term. At the moment, he has two broad responsibilities: handling macro issues like taxes and immigration and planning for the election on November 7.
…Rove’s goal now is simple. He must produce a mix of policies and political initiatives to prevent a Democratic takeover of the House or Senate in this fall’s midterm election. Should he fail, the White House would probably be subjected to two years of torment by a Democratic Congress.
I make the following point in a wordier way here, but specifically regarding this year’s elections:
One reason sixth-year elections are bad for the president’s party is that, six years earlier, he generally brings in a lot of new congressmen who don’t survive in the long run (think Reagan in 1980 and 1986). That didn’t happen with Bush. It was Al Gore who had coattails in 2000, so in a way this is a sixth-year election for the Democrats. They’re defending five first-term senators, for example; the Republicans only two.
We’d be in better shape, obviously, if the Iraqis would all jus’ get along and the price of gasoline dropped by a buck. But I don’t think the party is structurally as vulnerable as it normally would be, and alarmism about November at this point seems to be a little excessive.
Comeback? How do you “come back” when you already own the White House, Congress and the courts? No worries, though, this letter leads me to believe one of their GOP pals will “save” the party soon.
I still say the GOP will lose a couple but stay in charge of all three. It’s good to get some alarmism going though, to shake people out of their complacency.
I was listening to Bloomberg Radio today and an oil analyst said that the bulk of the increase in the price of gas can be attributed to the Iraqi invasion. His thinking was that the destabilization of the Middle East, combined with the 40% decrease in Iraqi oil production since before the invasion, is responsible for the increase in the price of oil. Since supplies are at record levels, the only explanation for the increase in price is the fear factor and reduced production. This was not in the context of a political discussion — the interview was about the energy industry.
If the Democrats can use this argument and make it stick (a big if), then in November it’s Katie bar the door –
You seem to be forgetting the monstrous new appetites that India and China have been exhibiting over the past few years, Peter. They’ve sopped up all of the excess capacity for quite awhile now, even before the war began.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4922172.stm
And are we to believe that the aforementioned analyst didn’t even mention the drastic reduction in refining capabilities after Katrina? Methinks the analyst is not exactly painting a full view of the picture here. You have to examine both supply and demand in the equation – the war is but one of many factors.
There was a 60 – Minutes segment on biodiesel last Sunday, and one of the entrepenuers said that a Saudi Prince came up to him at a recent convention, and warned him that if he was too successful, they’d blow him out of the water by drastically lowering their prices. It’s not a black – or – white issue by any means.
Actually the oil analyst included China and India in his discussion, and concluded that the loss of Iraqi oil (which he estimated at one million barrels per day) was more significant than increased consumption in emerging markets. He said that the oil market is finely balanced between supply and demand, so any changes at the margin have exaggeraged effects.
I don’t claim to be an expert on this — but the analyst did not seem to have any political axe to grind.
Regarding Katrina: my understanding is that it affected the supply of gasoline because refineries were down, but had negligible effect on the supply of (unrefined) oil.