Dean Esmay has an intriguing post that serves as a perfectly stated reminder:
Joe Gandelman notes that Republicans are suddenly doing better in the polls than they were for most of the last year and a half. This should be no surprise. This is the way that the Bushies (who at the moment are the de facto Republican leadership) have done things for quite some time: They simply absorb most criticism. They sit there and take it, and take it, and take it. Their backs, like a tortoise, get pummeled. Even sometimes from people titularly on their side. They barely respond, or respond no more than they think they need to.
Then they suddenly come alive a couple of months before election day. Sometimes with responses they’d obviously been saving up. Sometimes, with new attacks. Either way, they unleash not only responses to the critics but also blistering counter-criticism.
Their supporters, who had become despondent, tend to say, “Whoah! Hello!” Then they’re suddenly inspired.
Their critics, on the other hand, tend to be caught completely off-guard.
Read it in its entirety.
If you go back and look at past races you’ll find: Dean Esmay is correct.
The question this year is whether the conditions are different or if the GOP has put so many solid political structural supports in place that it will withstand these conditions. And whether Bush and Rove have also mastered the art of changing conditions at the time when it really matters (by 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.