Karl Rove, the president’s top political adviser, is interviewed by radio talk show host Sean Hannity, right. Hannity and 39 other mostly conservative radio hosts were invited to join top officials and broadcast from a large tent on the White House grounds. Story, A7. (By Susan Biddle — The Washington Post)
Peter Baker reports for the Washington Post that the GOP has decided to use the same strategy it used in the last “two campain cycles”. The strategy, quite simply, is to get the message out that things would be even worse if the Democrats would be in power. More / higher taxes, weak on national security: in short the ‘normal’ talking points. Rhetoric. By doing so, the GOP hopes to rally the conservative base.
Beset by discouraging polls and division within ideological ranks, the White House is accelerating efforts to woo back disaffected conservatives and energize the Republican base in a reprise of a strategy that succeeded in the last two campaign cycles.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney have given multiple interviews to conservative journalists, senior adviser Karl Rove has telephoned religious and social activists, and the White House has staged signing ceremonies for legislation cracking down on terrorism and illegal immigration. Two weeks before Election Day, Bush aides invited dozens of radio talk show hosts for a marathon broadcast from the White House yesterday to reach conservative listeners.
The message that Bush and others are sending to alienated supporters is that, no matter how upset they have been about various policies or political missteps over the past couple of years, life would be far worse under the Democrats. They name liberal lawmakers who would take charge of key committees and warn conservatives that taxes would go up and protection against terrorists would go down. And they cite, in particular, the confirmation of two conservative Supreme Court justices who might have been blocked by a Democratic Senate.
As I see it, it is not going to work. “It would be even worse with them in power”, is not the best of arguments. When people vote, they want to get something in return: in essence, general policies they embrace. The problem is, many conservatives feel ignored. They are called on when election time has arrived, but that’s about it.
Some conservatives said it is too late. “They honestly need a baseball bat against the head,” said Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who helped Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) take over Congress in the 1990s. “Because if they don’t change the lexicon immediately, as bad as this election is going to be, they’re going to lose the presidency in 2008. I’ve given up on 2006. They’ve already made so many mistakes, there’s no way they can fix it in two weeks. But I’m worried now they’re going to lose all the marbles.”
[…]
The White House courtship of the right paid enormous dividends in the past, but this year it is complicated by a far more skeptical audience than in 2002 and 2004. Conservatives who were key to those victories have grown frustrated with the Bush policies on federal spending, immigration, Iraq and foreign affairs, and uncertain of his commitment to issues such as preventing legalized same-sex marriage. The Mark Foley page scandal did not help reassure “values voters,” as strategists call them, nor did the publication of a book by former White House official David Kuo saying that Bush aides dismissed Christian conservatives as “nuts.”
The GOP needs to be reformed. I have said this before: as I see it they need to refocus on their principles and on how to put those principles into real policies.
Rhetoric works. But only for so long. At a certain moment one has to perform. And when one doesn’t, the result is defeat.
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