Is President George Bush again rolling the political dice for a high risk bet? The AP:
President Bush is casting the war on global terrorism as the central issue of the midterm elections. But it’s a risky political strategy.
The approach carries reminders of failures inIraq, prisoner treatment at Guantanamo Bay, warrantless wiretapping at home and Osama bin Laden’s endurance abroad.
To be sure. And if events between now and then are negative ones, then it’s a flawed strategy. But if some positive news sprouts up (such as Bin Laden’s capture before election day) it could be positive. MORE:
GOP strategists hope the new focus, including efforts by Republicans in Congress to press for votes on a string of anti-terror initiatives, will burnish Bush’s image as commander in chief in responding to the 9/11 attacks and help to divert attention from Iraq.
But Democrats were quick to portray the president’s recent statements — including his acknowledgment Wednesday of a secret
CIA prison system and the movement of 14 high-profile detainees to Guantanamo — as an admission of failure….With the electorate in a sour and generally anti-incumbent mood, majority-party Republicans have little choice but to run on the war against terrorism, suggest activists in both parties.
Frank Luntz, a GOP pollster and strategist who helped orchestrate the “Contract with America” campaign in 1994 that helped Republicans seize control of both House and Senate, sees parallels between then and now — but in reverse since Republicans now control both chambers.
“There is a deep desire for change and a consistent widespread rejection of the status quo,” he said.
Republicans have little choice but to make the war on terrorism their central theme, Luntz said. “They have to, because this is their one area of strength. This goes to the core difference between the two parties and their visions. If you can’t communicate a core difference, what can you do?”
This is one reason why the controversy over the upcoming ABC docudrama “The Path To 911” is so heated: the movie reportedly implies that one party’s administration (the Democratic Clinton administration) was largely negligent or incompetent in battling terrorism and that the other party’s administration (the Bush administration) was more awake at the switch and quickly battled terrorism the way it should be battled. The movie has ENTERED THE DEBATE with one side saying it is leaving out its arguments and even has material that is false.
The subtext of Lunt’s comment is that Republicans really can’t run on their record but have to accentuate differences with Democrats and raise the negatives of Democrats to win. That’s not a terrific legacy after being in charge of the entire government for six years. MORE:
Democratic pollster Mark Mellman noted that the one-time commanding Republican edge over Democrats on national security “has been dramatically diminished.”
“The conclusion of a lot of polls is that people in this country do not feel safer and they feel that George Bush’s policies in Iraq and elsewhere have increased the likelihood of terrorism against the United States, not decreased it,” Mellman said.
Who’s right? Watch the trend of polls between now and November.
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.