Never mind the disaster over there; look at the disaster over here

October 10, 2006

The WaPo had a front-page piece today on Republican expectations about the election cycle. GOP campaign officials conceded to the Post that they expect the party to lose “at least seven House seats and as many as 30” on Election Day.

Republicans, however, have a plan.

GOP officials are urging lawmakers to focus exclusively on local issues and leave it to party leaders to mitigate the Foley controversy by accusing Democrats of trying to politicize it. At the same time, the White House plans to amplify national security issues, especially the threat of terrorism, after North Korea’s reported nuclear test, in hopes of shifting the debate away from casualties and controversy during the final month of the campaign.

I wouldn’t necessarily blame the GOP for trying to exploit the North Korea nuclear crisis for partisan gain, if it weren’t for the fact that it makes Republicans look really bad.

If I understand the theory, Republicans will, in a last-ditch effort, tell Americans they should be deathly afraid, and therefore vote GOP. Except, as all of the polls indicate today, voters trust Democrats more to handle the terrorist threat. For that matter, pointing to North Korea should be the last thing Republicans want to do, especially since the crisis has worsened as a result of Bush’s incoherent policy. The GOP’s North Korea policy, if you can even call it a “policy,” has failed. They shouldn’t draw attention to the problem; they should hope voters don’t notice.

Frankly, if I’m a Republican consultant this morning, and I’m trying to figure out how to salvage the midterm cycle, I wouldn’t know what to do either. Maybe Osama bin Laden will come through for the GOP once again. It wouldn’t be the first time.

This is Boy George II’s track record with North Korea:

“You’d better not throw those United Nations inspectors out!”

“Well, you’d better not reprocess those fuel rods to get plutonium!”

“Well, you’d better not make that plutonium into nukular bombs!”

“Well, you’d better not test those nukular bombs!”

now

“Well, you’d better not give those nukular bombs to terrorists or our enemies!”

And the Republican’ts want to run on this?

  • If I’m a Republican consultant trying to maintain Republican control, I would have a hard time looking in the mirror. By any measure, Republicans have brought national disaster with their policies of party over country .

  • > since the crisis has worsened as a result of Bush’s incoherent policy.

    The question is whether the general population believes this. I’d be curious if there are any polls out there that examine voters’ opinion on this. It’s my guess that most people aren’t aware of what we have or haven’t done over the past six years to address the North Korea problem. I think the detonation is probably good news for the Bush administration in that it distracts voters from the Foley scandal. But I could be wrong. It’s an interesting turn of events, that’s for sure.

  • This North Korea situation is really serious, and I wouldn’t want to mention it if I was a republi-thug either. North Korea could be a metaphor for the policy of these thieving incompetent jerks. Bush has done nothing to help the NK situation but ignore and exploit the situation for political gain, including revoking a treaty that might have defused the situation. How can we stand two more years of this?

  • If I’m a Republican consultant trying to maintain Republican control, I would have a hard time looking in the mirror.

    Especially since we know mirrors won’t reflect a vampire ;-).

    I agree that this is the sign of desperate people trying desperately to make the best of a desperate situation. (Hey, if the White House can use the word Provacative nine zillion times I can use desperate.)

    Switching the debate to NoKo will just direct our attention to the fact NoKo is sticking its tounge out and making neener neener noises and President MonkeyShines with all of his talk about the Axis of Evil can … what? Use the word provacative some more? Maybe he thinks Kim Jong Il is like the Knights who say Nee and the word Provacative causes him to howl and cringe.

    In addition, Foleygate is not the sort of thing people will forget. If they don’t see some sort of action they’ll just get suspicious.

  • how soon before we hear about Kim being linked to 9/11? Everyone knows that most of the hijackers were North Korean, right?

  • GRACIOUS is right. BushCo exploited the North Korea nuke situation to foment support for SDI and to enrich certain defense contractors’ bottom lines. If fact, on the day of 9/11 wasn’t Condi Rice scheduled to give a speech calling for the missile defense system?

  • It’s wishful thinking to assume the public will be distracted from one scandal by the emergence of a new failure. There is no rule that the public can only enjoy one scandal at a time, that we can only give the administration crap about Korea or Foley, but not both. These scandals are potentiating each other, piling on top of each other, so the world can see the breadth of Republican incompetence. No one’s distracted by Korea. This is another log being thrown onto a very hot fire of voter dissatisfaction with this administration.

  • Fear-mongering is the last refuge of a beaten party. Couldn;t happen to a more deserving group of people.

  • ***In addition, Foleygate is not the sort of thing people will forget. If they don’t see some sort of action they’ll just get suspicious.***
    —————————————- The answer is orange

    But they WILL see action. Even now, Pat McHenry (a prime example of why science should never experiment with the genetic recombination of human DNA and fast food)) is devising an evil plot to show that the NoKo nuclear test is actually a plan by the Democrats to shield them from being exposed as responsible for outing the Foley emails and IM’s….

  • Rolling out OBL shouldn’t have worked in 2004 either, it had been 3 years of failure and Bush’s call had let him get away. The GOP should have had to duck the issue – not turn it into a campaign centerpeice. But that assumes that the reaction to news like an OBL tape or a Nork nuke is going to be rational. If people start talking about crazy dictators and mushroom clouds, that doesn’t automatically become a win in the dem column.

    Dems have to get out there ahead of the issue and explain why they can do better and connect it to something the average voter can appreciate (not the advantages of bi-lateral talks vs 6 party).

  • I think there’ll be some more Foleygate stuff coming out later on in the week. Americans may know nothing about imbalanced budgets or damaged prestige around the world, but they sure know sleaze when they smell it. And they don’t much like arrogant cover-ups either. It’s gonna be a great run to November 7. Then we’ll see if the system’s broken down or not.

  • All politics are local and while the national numbers are encouraging, I think people who have voted Republican will continue to do so if for no other reason than, as was said earlier, people don’t like to admit being wrong. Voting for the other party when you’ve been so consistently on one side for several cycles may feel to some like an admission. People will rationalize that “I don’t like who’s in Congress but my guy is ok.” Heck, people are still willing to vote for Reynolds and Hastert. People like to have one of their own in a position of power. You know people in Hastert’s district tell their friends “Hastert’s a local boy. Why sure, he comes over here and eats at Joe’s. Now this is a pickle they’re in but at least ol’ Hastert didn’t touch those boys.” Rationalized incompetence/evil (depending on your views) and vote for Hastert.

  • I READ, THIS MORNING, THAT THERE IS AN ADDITIONAL CARRIER GROUP HEADING FOR THE PERSIAN GULF ABOUT A MONTH AHEAD OF SCHEDULE. THEY SHOULD BE ON STATION EARLY NEXT WEEK. ON STATION MEANS WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE OF ALL OF IRAN.

  • Homer’s got a point. My impression of politics in this age is that it’s gone from being a question of philosophies to being a tribal issue. Dems and Repubs are this nation’s Shiite and Sunni, Hutu and Tutsi, Croats and Serbs. Voters may not like the guy leading the party, but tribal loyalty still trumps all. Some of the Carpetbagger’s other posts today suggest that reason may be beginning to overcome the tribe or the public may be reassessing which tribe it belongs to. That would be a good thing. I’d like to see this nation judge candidate’s by their character and not solely on their party affiliation.

  • “Voters may not like the guy leading the party, but tribal loyalty still trumps all.” – petorado

    Until they get into the privacy of a voting booth. Thus the diabolical diebold trick. Voters tell polsters one thing and do another in the voting booth, but no one questions the count because it matches the polls.

  • Dems and Repubs are this nation’s Shiite and Sunni, Hutu and Tutsi, Croats and Serbs.

    If so, we are sc-rewed. The Repubs have the superior fire power. But if things get really bad we can always try squirting some holy water on Cheney. I’m melting! Meeeeeltinggg!

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