What motivates the GOP base?

August 8, 2006

It’s hard to say for sure whether this was a planned leak or an accidental one, but National Journal’s Marc Ambinder and the LA Times’ Peter Wallsten “obtained” a copy of an internal strategy memo based on a Republican National Committee poll of GOP voters. The purpose of the memo, written by Republican pollster Fred Steeper and sent to RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, was to highlight exactly which issues will best motivate the party’s base this cycle.

Tax cuts? Immigration? God, guns, and gays? Not according to this report.

Steeper concluded that the president’s prosecution of the international war on terror — and worries that Democrats will abdicate that responsibility — are the single most active motivator for those surveyed. As Steeper wrote in his memo “A huge 87% of the Base expresses extremely strong feelings about one or more of these issues.”

80 percent expressed a similar sentiment about the domestic sphere of the war on terror, which includes the NSA wiretaps and the USA Patriot Act.

BTW: “Almost 60% of the Base expresses extremely high dissatisfaction with the media coverage of the situation in Iraq.”

To turn these results into a campaign strategy, Republicans would tell voters a) the GOP is tough on terror; b) the GOP can do a better job keeping the nation safe; and c) the war in Iraq is going better than those mean reporters would have you believe.

Oddly enough, that’s exactly what we’ve been hearing for months. Those genius Republican consultants don’t even need strategy memos — they’ve already figured out exactly what to do.

Whether this is a good strategy, of course, is a different question.

If the Republicans heed Steeper’s advice, the party will focus nearly all of its attention in the coming months on emphasizing foreign threats, the war in Iraq, the crisis with Iran, and the war on terror in general.

Needless to say, this is not without risks. If the memo is right, these issues will motivate the base, but they’ll also remind everyone else of the administration’s disastrous foreign policies and the Republican Congress’ disinterest in raising questions and/or challenging failure.

It’s probably hard for the GOP to believe right now, but most Americans have simply lost faith in the party’s approach to foreign policy. Polls show voters give Dems the edge over the Republicans on Iraq and the war on terror in general, and support a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

Kevin Drum is probably right that these opinions are less than rock solid, but what are Republicans capable of doing between now and November to show the electorate that they’re trustworthy on the issue? To date the strategy has been the enthusiastic embrace of bumper-sticker politics (“cut and run”), but not only has that failed to turn the tide, it’s prompted some Republicans — both in office and out — to run in the other direction.

Republicans appear increasingly convinced that if they run the same campaign in 2006 that they did in 2004, they’ll stay in power. It hardly sounds like a recipe for success.

“[B]ut what are Republicans capable of doing between now and November to show the electorate that they’re trustworthy on the issue?”

Vote to impeach and begin legit investigations into the administrations foreign policy follies and lies (they can always eventually say that there was insufficient evidence presented to the Senate to support the articles of impeachment).

But they won’t do that.

  • “BTW: “Almost 60% of the Base expresses extremely high dissatisfaction with the media coverage of the situation in Iraq.””

    What good news is there to report? It means that these folks would rather live in a fantasy lala land where Iraqis throw flowers at soldiers instead of grenades, where there are restaurants that have all you can eat top quality Grade A+++ USDA sirloin steak for $1.99, where you have better odds of winning the lottery than getting hit by a meteor, where you can eat all you want, sit on your ass and have a body like Lance Armstrong and where the US can do no wrong.

    Reality sucks folks. Get used to it.

    My only suggestion to the deluded is stay the hell away from any leadership positions because there are no unicorns or Great Jeebus in the Sky going to save your ass from your mistakes.

  • So dispite the blatent failures of the Bushites and the fact that Boy George II won’t hold any of them accountable for their failures, the wingnuts think these are the most important issues and the Republican’ts think they can secure their wingnuts with ads toting their ‘superiority’ over the Democrats on these issues.

    I suppose, if I was Dean or Emmanuel or Schumer, I’d get out there and:

    1) point out the failures and lack of accountability for the same in the Bushites administration,
    2) argue that the Democrats aren’t going to give up on defeating al Qaeda, but that the Republican’ts already have.

  • What’s with their capitalization of “the Base”? Is it a translation of “al Qaida”?

    Worse, the internal document uses the word “Democrat” when it means “Democratic,” grammar be damned.

  • The key for Dems is to fight a different campaign than they did in 02 and 04. Instead of trying to change the subject, attack the Iraq issue head on and point out that Bush made America less safe. I’m hoping that Dems do that, but I’m really not holding my breath.

  • One thing that the Republicans can count on is that the Democratic Party will likely cede the “strong on national defense” plank to them… Just as they did in ’02 and ’04.

    Sure, it may not be quite as popular as it once was, but I think Drum is correct to caution that current national polling may not be accurately portraying a siesmic shift in public opinion.

    But, just remember how vulnerable Bush seemed during the summer of ’04 only to turn out the “security” vote on election day.

    I agree with Lance: Democrats must directly confront the myth that Bush and the Republicans are “strong on defense” NOW…

    Or else the myth will continue to flourish and land right in the lap of a McCain or a Guiliani come November ’08.

  • what are Republicans capable of doing between now and November to show the electorate that they’re trustworthy on the issue?

    Scaring the shit out of us. They don’t have to show that they can solve the problem — they just have to stir up emotions and the base (plus quite a few moderates) will go running off to vote for Daddy again.

  • I am in the middle of reading John Deans’ book, “Conservatives Without Conscience:”, and it explains exactly why these people do and think what they do and think.

    Fear. Fear of everything. Pure, non-rational fear.

    It does not suprise me in the least, now, that this is and always will be their only strategy.

    Friends and fellow Patriots, this book is a must read to understand our common enemy of peace and Democracy

  • One thing that the Republicans can count on is that the Democratic Party will likely cede the “strong on national defense” plank to them… Just as they did in ’02 and ’04.

    So long as ‘strong on national defense’ really means ‘will produce hecatombs of dead Moslems on demand if that’s what it takes to make me stop peeing my pants in abject fear’, I don’t see how the Democrats can compete — we’ve not got the dead bodies to point to and say “We did that for you!”

    So long as American domestic politics is a poker game played with the corpses of brown people who worship the wrong God — and it bids fair to stay that way for a decade — the Democrats aren’t going to stay at the table as long as the GOP, because they own the bank.

    Remember, even when you see a poll suggesting that the electorate is abandoning the GOP’s approach to the ‘war on terror’, that the opposition is always composed both of those who think the present administration’s actions are inept, immoral, counter-productive on the one hand, and those who think it’s not bloody, brutal, or destructive of our civil liberties enough.

    You can cobble together a majority, on one day in November, of the brutal and the stupid.

  • Between this thing, and some of the stuff flittering back and forth on the Rove hotline, I’m thinking that there are some aspects within the GOP that are planning a two-pronged gambit. First, play up the security card to its maximum, in anticipation of a pre-election surprise. Second, concede the midterms, continue the security voodoo, and play the surprise during the ’08 campaign. Either one gives the GOPpers their precious “I-told-you-so” epiphany to justify further restrictions in civil liberties and Constitutional guarantees. It also plays well with Herr Bush’s “not-gonna-worry-about-Osama” ploy—after all, why hunt the bastard when you need his terror to justify getting more power from a scared-witless collection of sheep? Just as Big Brother needed his Goldstein, so does Herr Bush need his bin Laden….

  • Democrats v. Republicans on National Defense:

    World War I (a stupid war, granted, but the result of international pacts beyond our control – brought to a Peace Conference by Woodrow Wilson (D).

    World War II – Allies ably headed by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D), brought to devastatingly victorious conclusion by Harry S Truman (D) who also saw the creation of the United Nations.

    Korean War – technically a police action, successfully restoring the 38th parallel and the Policy of Containment, waged and all but finished by Truman (D)

    Vietnam War – ostensibly a continuation of Containment Policy, waged by Lyndon Baines Johnson (D), continued long after it was known we could win by Richard Nixon (R)

    Soviet Union collapse – 40 years of successful containment, conceived and mostly fought by Democratic administrations; hot air (“let my people go”) from Ronald Reagan (R) who took credit for the final collapse after bankrupting the US. He also cost us 283 lives in Lebanon and conquered Grenada.

    Kuwait invasion – Bush I (R), after inviting Iraqi incursion through the US ambassador to Iraq, drives out Iragi incursion

    Afghan invasion – Bush II, after 9/11, drives out the Taliban but withdraws to Kabul thus allowing Taliban to come back in

    Iraq invasion – Bush II wants to outdo his father and “conquers” Iraq only to have to retreat to Baghdad where recently 100,000 Iraqis were shouting anti US slogans.

    There is a qualitative difference in the D and R approach to war: the Dems have fought wars on behalf of our national interest (excepting LBJ, imo), the Reps have fought to enhance their buddies’ bank accounts and their own politicsal prospects, the country be damned.

  • CB: Re: the use of “Democrat” as a modifier instead of “Democratic,” I have noticed a fair number of high level spokespeople for the DEMOCRATIC Party falling into this trap. I cannot cite links to specific examples (although Dick Durbin comes to mind), but I have been sensitized to listen for this construction. If leading Democrats do not resist this little language game, why shouldn’t the Right simply continue and expand upon it?

    PS: I’ve often noted the irony of the linguistic similarity of the vaunted Republican Base and Al Quaida…

  • What? The Republicans did a POLL to find out what they should do?

    I’m shocked. I thought this was the party that made decisions according to what was “right,” not according to poll results.

    I suspect the real reason for the poll was to help convince Republican incumbents facing re-election that they really don’t have anything to worry about as long as they toe the party line. Its real purpose is to enforce discipline by offering tunes they can all whistle as they try sauntering nonchalantly past the graveyard.

  • You know, it occurs to me that this ‘report’ is effectively a pack of lies.

    The Republican’t Base doesn’t really care more about foreign policy issues than their ‘values’ issues. The Republican’ts just think these are the issues where they stand in stark favorable contrast with the Democratic party with their Base.

    Now us reality-based Americans, we know the Republican’ts are doing a horrible job on all these issues to do with national security. But ‘the Base’, they have their fingers in their ears and are chanting ‘LA, La, La’ to keep the reality out. Notice their dissatisfaction with the MSM’s coverage of the war. They’re clawing through the s**t confident that somewhere there’s a pony in that pile.

    However, if the Republican’ts promoted their values and domestic ‘achievements’ as the campaign issues, they know that their Base will split, many unhappy with huge deficits, government expansion, and failure to achieve the overthrow of Roe-v-Wade. Not really a record to run on, eh? So we get this memo from the RNC claiming the Base really cares more about national security than about the abject failures of the Bushites and the Republican’t controlled Congress and Courts.

  • I think their strategy will be as follows:

    Muddy the water on all the issues they suck at (corruption, economy, supporting the troops) play the hate cards to get the idiots riled up enough to vote in droves, then throw in some terror alerts and maybe get Pakistan to blow up a house a week before the election and act like Osama might have been in it. Find out after the election that he wasn’t (keep him alive ’til 2008)

    What else…

    Find some more 1990’s vintage WMDs. Ban flag-burning. Chisel “UNDER GOD” onto the Washington Monument. Rename Sunday JESUS DAY. Replace Tony Snowflake with Rush Limbaugh.

    ///snark (partly)

    Diebold will do the rest.

  • Note to Ed Stephan:

    I agree with your assesment although you left out one extremely important conflict.

    October, 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest this nation has ever come to thermonuclear war. JFK, to his infinite credit, chose diplomacy over armed conflict. His chief diplomat, Adlai Stevenson, faced down the Soviet stooges at the UN and demanded the missiles be removed from Cuban soil. In return, missiles aimed at the USSR were removed from Turkey by the US. This is a textbook case of how Democrats handle national security. That is to say, EFFECTIVELY.

    Speaking of stooges, right-wing lightweight Ann Coulter once remarked, “Imagine if Al Gore was President during 9/11.” or words to that effect. I’ve got a better idea:

    Imagine if *Nixon* was President in October of 1962.

  • “Imagine if Al Gore was President during 9/11.”

    I do all the time. Considering that he is:

    1) an Adult,
    2) a member of the administration that protected America from the Millenium attacks,

    I imagine that Gore would have driven his administration hard enough to prevent 9/11. And I’m pretty confident he wouldn’t have told his CIA briefer “You’ve covered your ass, now get out.”.

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