From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Sun Oct 15 2006 - 07:45:10 EDT
Andrew Rawnsley writes in The Observer (Sunday October 15): (...) When I spoke to Andy Card, who for five years was Chief of Staff to President Bush, he calculated that the election would ultimately come down to which side could mobilise more of its supporters in the last 72 hours. (...) A slew of recent opinion polls shows support for the Republicans plummeting and the Democrats gaining what should be a decisive edge. (...) Given such a toxic blend of policy failure abroad, financial and sexual scandals at home, compounded by discontent about the economy, in most democracies the governing party would be expecting a total meltdown. (...)And yet you have to be a little cautious about predicting that the Republicans will suffer the sort of wipe-out that natural justice says they deserve. (...) There are three weeks left before election day and the polls have yo-yoed depending on the sleaze or terror headline of the hour. While America's mood is volatile, its democracy is becoming atrophied. (...) The gerrymandering of seats to permanently fix their political complexion has made it extraordinarily difficult to dislodge incumbents. The story of this election is one of Republican collapse rather than any great enthusiasm for the Democrats. They don't have a clear message delivered by a popular and plausible leader. (...) It is in the nature of the American system that the executive can speak with a single voice - that of the President - while the opposition talks in a cacophony of tongues. (...) George Bush faces a bleak closing chapter of his presidency. The Democrats need only gain control of one house to start launching investigations into 9/11, the Iraq war and its searing aftermath, the financial scandals, the sexual scandals - you name it, they can subject the White House to torture-by-inquiry. (...) http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1922814,00.html But are there not more profound reasons why "the opposition talks in a cacophony of tongues" than "the nature of the American system"? "The Democratic party['s] constituencies are more diverse and, while united in opposition to President Bush, the Democrats are fractured by differences over social and personal values." http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=242 One columnist, E. J. Dionne Jr, noted succinctly in the Washington Post (September 27, 2005): "But the [Democratic] party's problems are structural and can be explained by three numbers: 21, 34 and 45. According to the network exit polls, 21 percent of the voters who cast ballots in 2004 called themselves liberal, 34 percent said they were conservative and 45 percent called themselves moderate. Those numbers mean that liberal-leaning Democrats are far more dependent than conservatively inclined Republicans on alliances with the political center. Democrats second-guess themselves because they have to. (...) The core difficulty for Democrats is that they must solve two problems simultaneously -- and solving one problem can get in the way of solving the other. Over time Democrats need to reduce the conservative advantage over liberals in the electorate, which means the party needs to take clear stands that could detach voters from their allegiance to conservatism. For some in the party this means becoming more moderate on cultural issues such as abortion. For others it means full-throated populism to attract lower-income social conservatives. Some favor a combination of the two, while still others worry that too much populism would drive away moderate voters in the upper middle class. The debate often leads to intellectual gridlock. But even indeterminate talk of a "national" message makes many Democrats [...] (and Democratic senators from red states) nervous. Such Democrats figure they know their own districts better than any national party leader or consultant, and they often prefer to operate on their own." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092601462.html In the meantime the Pew Research Centre reports that: "The percent of Democratic voters who think of themselves as "liberals" has been slowly rising in recent years, while the number of conservative Democrats has declined." http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=141 "Democrats are also far more excited about voting this year, with 51% saying they are more enthusiastic about voting than usual, up from 40% in 2002. Just a third of Republicans say they are more enthusiastic about voting than usual, down from 44% four years ago." http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=291 The Pew Research Centre provides the following thumbnail sketch of the axes of current ideological divisions: DIVISIONS BETWEEN PARTIES: - national security - assertive foreign policy DIVISION WITHIN PARTIES: - environmentalism - government regulation - isolationism versus global activism - immigration DIVISIONS BETWEEN AND WITHIN PARTIES: - religious and moral values - welfare - cooperation with allies - business and the free market - cynicism about politics - individualism versus fatalism http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=242 The Oct. 6-8, 2006 Gallup poll finds "a majority of likely voters saying the Democrats in Congress would do a better job than the Republicans in Congress at handling healthcare, government corruption, gas prices, the economy, and the situation in Iraq. Just less than half say the Democrats would be better on immigration, moral standards, and terrorism". http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=24961 "The probability has increased that the Democrats will win the 15 seats necessary to take control of the House of Representatives on Nov. 7." http://www.galluppoll.com/ELECTION2006/ Jurriaan
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