As polls show the president’s approval numbers falling, there is growing concern among lawmakers that GOP margins in Congress could shrink next year, and even rank-and-file Republicans are complaining that Bush is shirking the difficult budget decisions that must accompany the rebuilding bonanza.<\/p>\n
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) said he and other fiscal conservatives are feeling “genuine concern [which] could easily turn into frustration and anger.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
One indicator many Republicans are watching to gauge whether Bush is becoming a liability for the party is in Pennsylvania, where Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, is trailing state treasurer Bob Casey Jr. by double digits.<\/p>\n
“My caucus would do anything for Senator Santorum,” Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.) said of his colleague. Chafee, who himself faces a tough reelection battle next year, predicted Republicans will increasingly be faced with the choice of propping up Bush or protecting their own. “I think they’re going to collide,” Chafee said of the two options.<\/p>\n
Asked whether Bush’s problems were a factor in his slump, Santorum responded, “That may be.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
For Santorum to make such an admission on the record seems significant. Earlier this year, the response to such a question would have prompted Santorum or any number of other vulnerable Republicans to dismiss the very idea of Bush being a burden to their campaigns. Bush is a fine leader, proud to stand with him, yada yada yada.<\/p>\n
Not anymore. A lame-duck president, with an approval rating at-or-below 40%, and a legislative wish list that won’t help vulnerable incumbents, is suddenly finding that Republicans, who are more worried about their own prospects than the White House agenda, aren’t anxious to do his bidding.<\/p>\n
And if Bush has lost his power over Congress, Bush has lost just about everything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was bound to happen. With the president’s national support in freefall, Republicans facing re-election next year are starting to look over their shoulders and wonder whether they’d even want Bush to campaign with them in their states\/districts. The very idea of the president being a liability is without precedent since Bush took office in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}