NOTE TO READERS: During the campaign this site regularly ran large excerpts from University of Virginia Political Scientist Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball email newsletter. And when the votes were counted, Sabato, Director, U.Va. Center for Politics, came off quite well — as did his Crystal Ball.
We offer you below some more hefty parts of his latest Crystal Ball analysis which you can and should read here. It goes into more detail (the impact of gas prices, the Iraq war) then we will here. We’re giving you some key highlights.
ON HURRICANE KATRINA Sabato notes that “Hurricane Katrina produced the fastest blame game in history” as Americans watched the storm, the hapless victims and quickly made judgements that didn’t help George Bush. Sabato notes the role and responsiblities of state and local officials, then writes:
Fair or not, the anger has been directed at the President, and this is inevitable. Yes, a good case can be made that Governor Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana and Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, both Democrats, bear a great deal of the responsibility for the ineffective evacuation of the city and the subsequent calamity in the Big Easy and the Bayou State. Both were unimpressive at a moment of crisis, and in time, their decisions–or lack of them–will be judged harshly.
But, very few Americans had heard of either public official before this crisis, and despite the undisputed fact that disaster planning and execution is primarily a state and local function, most people believe that the federal government is responsible. That means President Bush. Add to this the fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency became well known in the Clinton White House years for its work in hurricane relief. Even President Clinton’s toughest critics admit that he and his FEMA director, James Lee Witt, did an especially good job in upgrading the delivery of disaster assistance during the 1990s. So expectations were high, and eyes were on Washington.
And what of Bush’s performance?
Unfortunately for the President, Bush was on vacation in Crawford, not at work in the oval Office, and his FEMA director, Mike Brown, came across as a bumbling disaster. Foolishly, when Bush joined up with Brown to view the Gulf Coast, he intentionally turned to his appointee and cracked, “You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie!” Most Americans would have agreed, had the President’s voice been dripping with sarcasm. It wasn’t.
In the last few days, conditions have improved somewhat in the affected areas, but a decade-long, $150 billion-plus rebuilding process is ahead. Also ahead is a nasty series of investigations that will inevitably inflict further damage on Bush as more sordid information about the lack of quick action is uncovered. Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin may be hurt, too, but who outside of Louisiana will care?
Is anyone coming out of this with his/her image possibly enhanced? He says yes:
The only political figure to gain from this natural and man-made fiasco is Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R), whose leadership, while not perfect, was reminiscent of Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s after September 11th. Hmmm…A Giuliani-Barbour ticket in 2008? Or is it Barbour-Giuliani? The North-South balance would be irresistible, and the sharp combination of extreme regional accents would require simultaneous translation on the campaign trail….
AND BUSH’S OVERALL STANDING RIGHT NOW ISN’T GOOD, he writes. Sabato first analyzes poll numbers, which he said trend bad in historical terms. Then he writes at the end:
It isn’t just the “Who Lost New Orleans” Commission that should worry the Bush White House, nor the continuing crisis in Iraq or rising gas prices, as serious as all of these things are. President Bush has three and a half years left to serve, and his ratings appear stuck near 40 percent. He is now in a position where he must play to his conservative base even more ardently, just to maintain that low level of support. Yet playing to the base alone will deepen partisan divisions and alienate the moderate Independents he needs to win back to climb back to or over 50 percent–the level of backing at which a President can make real progress on his agenda.
(Note that this writer and others on this site qualify as moderate independents, although individuals may lean in one or another direction depending on the issue. Do you notice anything in our reactions to events over the past few months?)
Skillful moves, such as his Chief Justice nomination of the able John Roberts, can help. But is there another Roberts out there for the vacant Associate Justice seat, someone who can please the base without generating a firestorm among liberals, moderates, and the news media? What about his Social Security proposal, which may need an infusion of stem cells just to attain moribund status? How can he secure his “death tax” relief, make permanent his other tax cuts, and seek major tax reform without pouring barrels of red ink on top of the existing sea of national debt–especially given the new, unavoidable costs of rebuilding the Gulf Coast? Oh, and did we mention there’s an election around the corner, in November 2006?
As Democrats recruit House and Senate candidates across the country…..will Bush be able to avoid Ronald Reagan’s fate of losing his base in Congress in the sixth-year election? Unanswered, difficult queries all, just like the nagging questions about the post-Katrina debacle. For George W. Bush, it only gets tougher, and the second term has barely begun.
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.