Desperation Politics
It was enough to elevate the well-worn notion of political pandering to a whole new level of sycophancy: Knowing full well that a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage had no chance of passing, Republicans--led by the president--raised the issue in the Senate anyway. "I am proud to stand with you," President Bush told supporters of the ban last week. In fact, he spoke about it twice in three days. Never mind that a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that fewer than 1 percent of Americans consider the issue of gay marriage as key or relevant to their voting choices. This is about something much more important--throwing red meat to the GOP base.
Which, in the end, is what Republican leaders are truly worried about as they head into the midterm elections this fall. They need to find a way to get their loyal voters to the polls--and it's not easy, given the fact that some aren't happy with a White House that talks more about Social Security than same-sex marriage. So the president's efforts to appeal to his conservative base last week were transparent, desperate--and predictable. After all, the marriage debate helped Republicans in 2004, when ballot proposals banning same-sex marriage in 13 states brought conservatives to the polls.
But that was then. Today's political realities are much more complex than any particular pandering. There's an unpopular president, plus an unpopular war (despite the good news that Abu Musab Zarqawi bought it last week), high gas prices, and low public confidence in the state of the nation. To think that a few days spent debating gay marriage will make anyone suddenly eager to vote is unrealistic, even silly. But it does underscore one reality: Republicans are at least starting to understand the gravity of their political predicament. "We're about five months behind schedule," says one top GOP strategist. "But at least we're starting to face up to what's ahead of us."
SWAT team. So what's ahead for the rest of us? A midterm election, it seems, in which each party will operate in a parallel universe: That is, the Democrats will try to nationalize the election as a referendum on the president; the Republicans will instead try to localize each race. "If it's a referendum on the president, we lose," one top House Republican tells me. "We have to make sure we run good local races, and then we'll survive. Which is all we can ask for."
That explains why Republicans poured almost $5 million into a single congressional race in California last week held to replace ex-GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now in prison for taking bribes from defense contractors. It's not that the White House actually liked its candidate. After all, the Republican Brian Bilbray is a lobbyist. Not only that, he distanced himself from the president on everything from his plan to reform immigration (he's against) to abortion rights (he's for). Still, the administration understood that he had to win--or else predictions of a Democratic takeover in the House would run rampant. So the Republican National Committee sent in its "72 hour" SWAT team to get out the vote for the Republican presidential critic. Hey, what's belief got to do with it when the control of the House is at stake?
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