"Things are so bad that many people don't even want to call themselves
Republicans. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has
found the lowest percentage of self-described Republicans in 16 years of
polling."
GOP getting crushed in polls, key races
Jim VandeHei and David Paul Kuhn
Politico, May 11, 2008
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10238.html
John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But
being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence
these days.
In case you’ve been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice,
Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at the polls and
in the polls.
At the polls, it has been a massacre. In recent weeks, Republicans have
lost a Louisiana House seat they had held for more than two decades and
an Illinois House seat they had held for more than three. Internal polls
show that next week they could lose a Mississippi House seat that they
have held for 13 years.
In the polls, they are setting records (and not the good kind). The most
recent Gallup Poll has 67 percent of voters disapproving of President
Bush; those numbers are worse than Richard Nixon’s on the eve of his
resignation. A CBS News poll taken at the end of April found only 33
percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP — the lowest since
CBS started asking the question more than two decades ago. By
comparison, 52 percent of the public has a favorable view of the
Democratic Party.
Things are so bad that many people don’t even want to call themselves
Republicans. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has
found the lowest percentage of self-described Republicans in 16 years of
polling.
“The anti-Republican mood is fairly big, and it has been overwhelming,”
said Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis.
With an environment so toxic, does McCain have even a chance of winning
in November?
The McCain camp thinks so — but only if he sands down the “R” next to
his name. "Nobody ever gets elected president by running on their party
label," said Charlie Black, a senior McCain adviser. "The character, the
qualities, the independence — that certainly allows him to rise over the
party label. It is more im****tant than usual to rise above the party
label."
This statement seems a little at odds with the current McCain strategy.
The presumptive GOP nominee has spent much of the recent campaign
fastening himself to the traditional Republican brand and even to Bush
himself. McCain's views on the war, the overall economy (especially
sup****ting the Bush tax cuts he previously opposed), the mortgage crisis
and judicial appointments are hardly the stuff of a new kind of
Republicanism.
McCain risks looking inauthentic and conventional to both camps if he
simply solidifies his standing with conservatives and then races back to
the middle to appeal to swing voters.
For now, Republicans are heartened by how well McCain sometimes does in
head-to-head polling with Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee.
But it's silly to watch those numbers: They fluctuate and reflect
nothing more than momentary feelings about the candidates, and they come
at a time when public attention is fixed on the final rounds of the
Democratic slugfest.
Right now, most voters with any familiarity with McCain probably know
him as a war hero, somewhat of a maverick in the Senate and a pretty
affable candidate. Let's see how they view McCain after Democrats use
their decisive money advantage to paint him as a much-older Bush clone
who loves an unpopular war and knows little about the economy.
Democrats provided us a look at their polling data from 17 swing states
— data they're using to craft new attacks on McCain as Bush 44. The
Democratic National Committee polling, according to a memo it provided,
has two-thirds of swing voters expecting McCain to pursue policies very
similar to Bush's. The voters' top three concerns about McCain: his age,
his sup****t for the war and his similarities to Bush.
The latest DNC ad ties two of the three together, slamming McCain over
the war and showing a picture of him embracing Bush. Lots more to come
on that front, DNC officials said. The DNC will leave the age issue
alone for now.
Many top Republicans seem heartened by Obama’s likely victory on the
Democratic side. They say they’re confident Obama will pay a big price
for his relation****p with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the persistent
questions about his patriotism and his inability to connect with
working-class whites in swing states.
These are all big problems for Obama. But he will have a massive cash
advantage when it comes time to fight back, and the Republican National
Committee’s fundraising edge over the DNC won’t be enough to overcome
it. Consider this fact: Since the beginning of last year, Obama, Hillary
Rodham Clinton and the DNC have raised $460 million total — about $200
million more than what McCain, Mitt Romney and the RNC raised together
in the same time span.
Rich liberals operating outside the traditional fundraising structure
are also in private talks to vastly outspend the GOP on issue ads and
voter mobilization efforts.
Still, McCain’s biggest problem is the toxic political atmosphere for
his party.
It’s so toxic, some Republicans are pointing to 1976 as a favorable
historical comparison. That was the year Gerald Ford ran in the dark
shadows of Watergate and lost to Jimmy Carter. Says Dick Wadhams, the
chairman of the Colorado Republican Party: “When voters really homed in
on the choice between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and what each stood
for, Gerald Ford almost won the election despite this horrible
environment.”
Almost.
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