It’s big news when Washington Post columnist David Broder, considered the voice of the political center in Washington, basically urges voters to vote a party and an administration out.
And, using a very thin figleaf, he does just that in his latest column. Here’s part of it:
The disillusionment is not the product of the Foley scandal, which is shifting few votes, as far as I can judge. And it also reflects more than the continuing bad news from Iraq, though that has had a large effect on public opinion.
What is driving public opinion is an overall impression that those in office — meaning mainly Republicans — have let things slide out of control and need to be relieved.
Indeed. It’s like when a boss of a company feels it’s time to get rid of the “deadwood” and clean house and bring a new group of managers in to run the company. But Broder repeats a theme that has been creeping into many news columns, analyses and political reports: some REPUBLICANS feel it’s time for a change:
What voters may not know is that the same judgment has been reached by a significant number of people who are part of — or close to — the Republican majority. If I have heard it once, I have heard it a dozen times: Major Republican figures, including top officials of several past GOP administrations and Congresses, say, “We deserve to lose this election.”
The failure is most evident at the Capitol end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The one measure of opinion that has shifted significantly in the past year is the public judgment of Congress. In the latest poll, it is negative by a 66 to 32 percent margin. Last November the gap was much smaller, with 59 percent disapproving and 37 percent approving.
The failure of this Congress to act meaningfully on immigration, energy, health care or other vital needs has left the public frustrated — and members of Congress feeling embattled.
But there is also a palpable sense of weariness in the executive branch and a need for relief there as well.
And here’s the section that may have an impact on the conventional wisdom among political and media bigwigs. A virtual call for change:
Fortunately, the voters have the power — if they pull the trigger on Election Day — to create a new plot for the Washington drama. This election campaign has been a learning experience for candidates of both parties, incumbents and challengers alike. They have been bombarded with messages from their constituents, telling them that the public is tired of the partisan bickering, tired of the gridlock and eager to elect people who will focus on the real problems and work together to find solutions.
If that lesson is reinforced by the election results, Washington will change. Congress will be run by people who talk with each other, across party lines. And even the White House may learn that it needs to end its isolation and engage more broadly at home and abroad if it is to salvage some substantial accomplishments from Bush’s final two years in office.
That kind of fundamental change in the political environment is possible — indeed, it is imminent and will be welcomed. But it will happen only if voters pull the trigger. Elections do matter, and this one matters more than most.
The last sentence is the most devastating for the White House and GOP strategists: Broder is underscoring the importance of this for not just Democrats, but independent voters AND members of the Republican party who are troubled over the style, substance and execution of policies by the present GOP-dominted power elite. And, he’s saying, it’s time to clean house and make the elite less elite.
What’s most significant is that Broder’s conclusion isn’t one reached by someone who is regurgitating what he heard on a radio or cable talk show or read on a weblog. Anyone can trace how he reached his conclusion by just reading written work (sharply criticized by many on the left) over the past few years. It documents how he arrived at the conclusion that something is broken and needs to be drastically fixed on election day.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.