{"id":7691,"date":"2006-06-15T10:49:13","date_gmt":"2006-06-15T14:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7691"},"modified":"2006-06-15T10:49:13","modified_gmt":"2006-06-15T14:49:13","slug":"the-gops-rhetorical-strategy-on-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-gops-rhetorical-strategy-on-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"The GOP’s rhetorical strategy on Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

The LA Times ran a front-page item<\/a> today explaining the Republicans’ new strategy when it comes to the politics of Iraq: talk about how they consistently see the war differently than most of the public.<\/p>\n

The [tag]Iraq[\/tag] [tag]war[\/tag] is the most immediate foreign policy problem besetting the [tag]Bush[\/tag] [tag]administration[\/tag]. But as a political issue, the White House and top Republican strategists have concluded that the war is a clear winner.<\/p>\n

GOP officials intend to base the midterm election campaign partly on talking up the war, using speeches and events to contrast [tag]President[\/tag] Bush’s policies against growing disagreement among leading Democrats over whether to support immediate withdrawal of U.S. [tag]troops[\/tag]. […]<\/p>\n

Ed Gillespie, a former [tag]Republican[\/tag] National Committee chairman and a key White House advisor, conceded Wednesday that protracted violence in Iraq and voters’ rising doubts “have had a dampening effect on the president’s approval rating.” But, he said, given a choice between [tag]Democrats[\/tag]’ uncertainty and Bush’s firmness, “that choice favors us.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All of this seems like a flawed strategy. As the theory goes, Republicans realize that the war in unpopular, but they believe the electorate will be impressed by the party’s “steadiness and clarity.” In other words, voters are supposed to conclude, “The [tag]GOP[\/tag] has been wrong about this disastrous war from the start, but I’m impressed by the consistency and resoluteness with which they’ve been wrong.”<\/p>\n

I’m not sure which strategist was paid big bucks to come up with this brilliant plan, but the party might consider asking for a refund.
\n
\nConsider the results of the new Wall Street Journal\/NBC News [tag]poll[\/tag]<\/a> (.pdf), which was released last night. The poll was conducted after Zarqawi was killed, so it should reflect the public’s new-found sense of optimism, if such a sentiment exists.<\/p>\n

Asked if “removing Saddam Hussein from power was or was not worth the number of U.S. military casualties and the financial cost,” 52% said it was not. It’s tied for the highest number to date in a WSJ\/NBC poll. Majorities also said the invasion was the “wrong decision” (53%) and that they are less confident that the war in Iraq will come to a successful conclusion (53%). Asked about the impact of Zarqawi’s death, a plurality said they believe it will have “no effect” on the war. And yet, despite all of this, the GOP has come to the conclusion that they need to tell voters how much they disagree.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Republicans have two choices: embrace a different policy (which Bush refuses to do), or try the don’t-believe-your-lying-eyes strategy with the public. Left with little choice, the party is going with the latter. We’ll see how that works out for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The LA Times ran a front-page item today explaining the Republicans’ new strategy when it comes to the politics of Iraq: talk about how they consistently see the war differently than most of the public. The [tag]Iraq[\/tag] [tag]war[\/tag] is the most immediate foreign policy problem besetting the [tag]Bush[\/tag] [tag]administration[\/tag]. But as a political issue, the […]<\/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-7691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7691","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=7691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}