Law professor, MSNBC columnist, and libertarian blogger Glenn Reynolds has this gentle warning to his party in one of his posts today in reference to President Bush’s declining poll numbers:
I don’t think it’s much of a mystery, and I agree with Bush pollster Matthew Dowd that it has something to do with Terri Schiavo….Only it’s broader than that.
The Democrats’ weakness is that people worry that they’re the party of Jane Fonda. They tried — but failed miserably — to convince people otherwise in the last election.
The Republicans’ weakness is that people worry that they’re the party of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. They tried, successfully, to convince people otherwise in the last election, but they’re now acting in ways that are giving those fears new life. Add to this the fact that the war is going well, weakening the national security glue that holds Bush’s coalition together, and a drop is natural: People who reluctantly backed Bush because Kerry was just unacceptable on national security are now seeing their worries about domestic issues as more credible.
Perhaps the Republicans think this will all be forgotten by 2006, or at least by 2008. And perhaps they’re counting on the Democrats to remain so feckless on national security that it won’t matter. Perhaps they’ll be right, but they’re certainly suffering short-term declines in the polls that hurt the President’s ability to act right now. I think that if he had a 60% approval rating, or even a 53% approval rating, he’d be making more progress on Social Security reform and on his various nominations. Was it worth this damage to solidify the social-conservative base? They seem to think so, but I’m not so sure.
He’s right. Based on what we are hearing from centrists from both parties (NOT just bloggers) from around the country, the GOP is solidifying its social-conservative base in a way that’s alarming others.
Some have suggested to us by phone and email that a message needs to be sent to the GOP higherups — and the party may not get a batch of votes it would normally count on as part of this message sending. We’re not talking about just independents, but GOPers who feel their party’s sharp right turn can only be righted by it hitting an iceberg call electoral erosion. Right now social-conservatives are saying “I’m King of the World!” — but they might do well to remember what happened to Leonardi diCaprio..
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.