Republican Tone-Deafness
One of the things that I’ve been curious about in relation to the Republican frontrunners is why they’re running campaigns almost entirely precipitated on things that are almost sure to lose them the general election. Listening to a Republican debate, one would have no idea that the Iraq war is unpopular. And not even marginally unpopular, but really really unpopular. Not just with Democrats, with with independents, and it’s not even all that popular among Republicans.
And yet you wouldn’t get that sense listening to the candidates. It’s like that with a lot of things. It’s not like the Republicans are even really trying to make any particular case, unless pressed. They just take it as a given that everybody is totally with them on national security issues, on gay marriage, on taxes, on health care, on immigration, etc. I’ve scratched my head about this for awhile, but now I think I know why: it’s because the candidates are all stupid.
A few months ago, Fred Thompson, when asked why the Republicans did so badly in 2006, made the bizarre (but adamant) assertion that it had nothing, not a thing, to do with Iraq, or corruption. It was in fact because of spending. Spending. When millions of voters, a solid majority stronger than in any election in recent history took to the polls and voted Republicans out of office en masse, that was because, according to Thompson, spending has gotten out of control. Nothing else.
I had a “wtf?” moment when I read that, but figured it was just Thompson. Now, however, Rudy’s saying the same thing.
“We lost control of Congress because we were just like the Democrats as far as spending is concerned – shame on us,” Giuliani told the anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity.
It’s easy to fall into the fallacy of the hyper-competent candidate, and just chalk it up to the audience, and how Rudy and the rest are just toeing what’s perceived as the Republican line, and that they’ll deftly pivot in the general, etc, but no…I think they really believe that. All the evidence would seem to suggest that that’s the case, certainly. There’s this bizarro bubble surrounding the core of the Republican party in which they really do believe that most everybody agrees with them on everything, that the vast majority of this country are red-stater Republicans, and so everybody who disagrees with them are just fringe lunatics, or good Republicans who are slightly disgruntled about cosmetic failures to adhere closely enough to increasingly partisan party lines (the latter of which is true, but it goes a lot deeper than “cosmetic”.
I’ve thought (and written a lot about the lessons of 2006, and though I think spending is in there somewhere, it’s certainly not near the top of a very big heap of Republican failings that brought about their trouncing. And it’s fairly disturbing that these guys, the frontrunners for the Republican nomination to the most important office in the world, arguably, are so completely oblivious to what people want of them, or don’t want. To these guys, it’s still roughly 2003.
The Right’s Field has another interesting take, incidentally. Conservatives, who still don’t internalize at all anymore that they’re a minority party, have this unfalsified belief that when Republicans are repudiated, it’s actually an affirmation of Republicanism. Also, in just 7 short years, the Rovian notion of Republican electoral strategy seems to have internalized as well. “We’ll just play increasingly stalwart and divisive to our base, and then throw as much fear-mongering and mud-slinging against our opponents as possible; who needs to sell ideology to America at large?”.
Both of which are pretty weird foundations to begin this cycle on, and not one that should fill intelligent observers with confidence in how they’re going to pull themselves out of the electoral hole.
It used to be the Democrats who seemed to be thinking two years behind. Say what you will about the Democratic candidates, but they’re doing a pretty good job of offering a real alternative, and of making their cases to the broad voting public.
The Republicans? They’re still preaching to a choir that abandoned the pews three years ago.
Brad, I have been trying to get a handle on this as well. My general sense: You are over stating the nature, extent, and composition of Iraq war opposition. Your thesis (they are stupid) has a certain appeal, but I’m not completely sold, and this is my alternative theory.
Belief that we should not have invaded Iraq, or that the occupation has been mishandled, or even that our intervention in Iraq has made us less safe, is not the same as believing that we should pull out “precipitously.” Some polling data: http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm Highlights:
Approve of Bush’s handling: 30%
Republicans will handle Iraq better than Dems: 34%
Iraq was “worth it” for US security: 38%
Lets call these the past and present issues, support runs 30-38%. Let’s contrast that with the future issues, support for staying in Iraq:
Stay until Iraq is stable: 43%
Support for keeping troop levels at or above pre-surge levels: 52% (Admittedly complex question/results from which I am having to infer some things)
What I am attempting to show is the statistically significant difference between “Iraq was a good idea” (30-38%) and support for “seeing it through” (43-52%).
Also keep in mind, this is a national poll and is not broken down by voter registration. I assume a poll of likely Rep voters would reveal much more support for a continued Iraq occupation. (Same link, from an earlier poll, 58% of Reps approve of Bush’s handling of Iraq).
If you continue scrolling down the link, you encounter a mid-September poll addressing more specifically the length of our stay in Iraq. What I infer is a population largely resigned to continued occupation; accepting if not in favor of it. Contrast these two results:
Willing to (I interpret as “support for”) have troops in Iraq 2+ years or more: 17%! Versus
Think (I interpret as “sorta accept the idea of”)troops will be in Iraq 2+ years or more: 58%!
Pretty striking difference, and I think it shows an expectation that we will stay, a willingness to stay, a resigned population.
OK, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. But really, I think you can make a strong and supportable case that:
1) The US population in general may think we erred in invading Iraq, but even so, they are, in large numbers, willing to stick it out, or at least tolerate politicians who believe that we should do so. The nation is not made up of political bloggers.
2) Core Republican voters, those likely to actual show up at the polls, are far more likely than the “average” American to support the party on long term Iraq occupation. I submit your very own data on Ron Paul as support. The only Iraq war pull out Republican, he has that field all to his own, yet he registers only 3% in the polls. And even though his impressive fundraising accounts for 10% of the total raised by the candidates last quarter, another way to look at those numbers is: in a field where he and he alone is the Iraq disengagement candidate, he only got 10% of the money.
Comment by Misanthrope — 10/6/2007 @ 10:43 pm
I think you’re reaching a bit. You’re making sort of longshot inferences, when the more to-the-point data is not at all unclear.
The otherside of the numbers:
68% disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq. In American politics, 68% falling on one side of a question like that is pretty remarkable.
Democrats, generically (generically), maintain a 15 point spread over Republicans on who Americans trust to do a better job handling the situation of Iraq. This is in the range of health care. Again, in American politics, whatever is over a 10 point advantage for a party is considered their “bread and butter”, and for decades, national security was REPUBLICAN bread and butter. It has COMPLETELY reversed since even 2004, when Bush barely squeaked by as an incumbent President against a weak candidate. And, a bit less generically, the advantage is even more clear when it’s phrased “Thinking ahead to the next presidential election, do you think a Democratic or a Republican president would do a better job resolving the situation in Iraq?” 51% to 31%. This is not a line that the Republicans can really afford to “coast” on.
“It was not worth it” generally ranges in the 60s.
When “withdraw forces” is put as a generic option, a clear majority of Americans 54% in the poll you quoted, but usually 5% higher than that) support that option.
A number that continues to amaze me, in every poll, if asked if Democrats in Congress have gone too far or not far enough (or just right) in their opposition on the issue of Iraq, a clear majority think they haven’t gone far enough. That is not a picture that would indicate an electorate pretty satisfied, or willing to live with, the situation. 60-70% think the Democrats should be tinkering with the Iraq war funding.
But most critically, when the question is asked “Which do you think we should do? Keep troops there for longer than five years, two to five years, one to two years, or less than a year” HALF want us out within the year. I’ve seen the question phrased with “within six months”, and it gets even more support.
Again, the data on this is not unclear. And with all the usual caveats, one is quite well supported in making the following statements. Iraq is unpopular. Americans think it was a mistake. Americans want us to leave.
And, like I said, an election is about choices. Americans probably DO believe that we might be sunk in for awhile (I certainly do). But if you have two candidates, one who promises that, and another that provides a credible withdraw position….well, there’s only one lever to pull.
What’s more, the nature of how this issue has played out (and its electoral ramifications—one gets a nice clear trend from 2002 to 2004 to 2006) would indicate to me that this isn’t just a “soft” hemming and hawing. The Pro-Iraq side have had every lever of power in their favor for nearly 5 years, and have bombarded America with their case. They even started with the benefit of the doubt hugely in their favor. And not only have they not made the sale, they have been rejected.
I tend to agree that Republicans will fall back in line on Iraq, but then again Republicans are going to have other reasons to stay away, if it’s Rudy, Romney, or McCain running. You can’t say that for the Democrats no matter who it is (and they’re already raised 100 million dollars more). And even then, as a partisan matter, Iraq isn’t popular enough within the GOP to be the glue that holds the party together. If that’s what the candidate is banking on, it is, at the very least, a pretty questionable strategy.
As to Ron Paul; let’s be honest, he’s got a lot of other strikes against him in terms of why he’s not a frontrunner. But, look at it this way. Tancredo is a comparable figure within the party (or was at the start). His issue was immigration, an issue on which he represents more of the GOP base than any of the frontrunners. Brownback is a bigger figure than Ron Paul (or was). His issue is values (largely assumed by Republican pundits to be what won Bush the second election), and he’s as credible a Religious Right candidate (which supposedly represents a huge chunk of the base) as anybody since Pat Robertson ran. Jim Gilmore, similarly, was a proven governor of what may well be a swing state, largely running on spending, another GOP core issue. All of these guys are smart, well-spoken, credible. They all started at about the same place as Ron Paul, whose single major issue, War, is LESS popular with the base (presumably) than either anti-immigration or pro-values or competent fiscal authority.
How are Tancredo, Brownback, and Gilmore doing, in relation to Ron Paul?
Comment by Brad — 10/7/2007 @ 12:00 am
Well as to the first 3/4 of your response: absolutely right, the general population is against the war. But I still see a statistical difference between “it was a bad idea” and “we should pull out tomorrow/really soon,” and in this gap the Republican candidates are living. Secondly, I should probably have researched deeper and just pulled likely Rep voter numbers, cause I thought we were mainly discussing the Rep candidates primary strategy. Given just rep numbers, support for the war is much higher. As for Tancredo: single issue candidate and perceived as such. Brownback: several other social conservative choices which split his support. Gilmore: Few are excited by claims of fiscal responsibility. But I do take your point, there is far more to this than actual positions and issues, intangible name recognition, expectation and mojo certainly define the front runners. And yet, for all the polling data you pull showing how disatisfied the national population is, I am stuck on the fact that the only pull out Rep has little support. It suggests a certain softness in anit-war sentiment amongst likely rep voters.
Comment by Misanthrope — 10/7/2007 @ 10:26 am