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Sour Americans Hungry for Change as Election Approaches    [

    GOP Faces Growing Peril in 2008 Races
    By Jonathan Weisman and Chris Cillizza
    The Washington Post

    Sunday 02 September 2007

Senate prospects dimming.

    A Senate electoral playing field that was already wide open for 2008 has become considerably more perilous for Republicans with the retirement of Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) and the resignation of scandal-scarred Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho).

    Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to take back control of the Senate, but they have 22 seats to defend, and campaign cash is conspicuously lacking. Warner's retirement raised to two the number of open Republican seats, and both of them - in Virginia and Colorado - are prime targets for Democrats.

    With former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey possibly waiting in the wings, Republicans are anxiously watching to see whether Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) will retire. And two more Republican seats open for reelection - in Wyoming and Idaho - would be occupied by unelected appointees, John Barrasso and Craig's replacement.

    "The state of the playing field looks very good, even in places where we didn't expect it to look good, even in deeply red states," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "Things could change, but if you did a snapshot, we're going to have a good year."

    "It's always darkest right before you get clobbered over the head with a pipe wrench. But then it actually does get darker," said a GOP pollster who insisted on anonymity in order to speak candidly.

    To be sure, last week's events will not necessarily change the terrain that much, if the Republicans get a little lucky.

    Former congressman Larry LaRocco, the Democrat campaigning hard for the Idaho senatorial seat, garnered just 40 percent of the vote last year against Republican James E. Risch in the race to be Idaho's lieutenant governor. Now, according to congressional Republican aides, Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter (R) is leaning toward naming Risch to succeed Craig. A Risch-LaRocco battle next year would be a rematch for a different prize. Democrats hope that the pall of Craig's resignation would sully all Republicans, but analysts are skeptical.

    "We're not worried about that state," said Rebecca Fisher, spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "I don't think that expands anything for us."

    Virginia would be a very different story - if Schumer can coax former governor Mark R. Warner (D) into the race. Most analysts, even Republicans, believe that Warner would enter the contest as a strong favorite. The Republican field could turn fratricidal if Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, a moderate whose political base is in the suburbs of Washington, goes up against former governor James S. Gilmore III, a confrontational conservative.

    The conservative Club for Growth, a free-spending political action committee unafraid to take sides in Republican primary fights, sent out a warning shot in a news release on Friday, declaring: "Virginia Republicans should take a long look at Davis' thirteen-year record as one of more economically liberal members of the Republican Conference."

    But congressional aides close to Warner say the popular former governor is still deeply torn between a Senate bid and holding out for a possible vice presidential nomination, a Cabinet post in a Democratic administration or another run for governor. As recently as Thursday night, he had not tipped his hand to confidants. And without Warner, there is no obvious Democratic contender.

    Beyond Idaho and Virginia, the playing field looks barren for Republicans, GOP campaign aides conceded. Fundraising at the NRSC has been weak, and Republicans appear to have only two real Democratic targets next year, Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Tim Johnson (S.D.). Johnson's slow recovery from a brain hemorrhage has impeded Republicans from going on the attack.

    The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Wednesday rated the Colorado seat being vacated by Sen. Wayne Allard (R) as a tossup, but the state has been trending Democratic. Antiwar sentiments are turning some voters away from the GOP, imperiling the reelection prospects of Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), John E. Sununu (N.H.), Norm Coleman (Minn.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.).

    The Craig scandal is only the latest issue to demoralize the Republican Party, and new wild cards keep springing up, such as an FBI raid on a home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and questions about the role that Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) may have played in the firing of U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias in Albuquerque. Democratic surrogates in labor-backed groups such as Americans United for Change have even been attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) in Kentucky.

    The Cook Report considers those three seats and the Idaho seat "likely Republican," but if the GOP is forced to spend any money defending them, it would be siphoning funds from races where the money would be badly needed. As of June 30, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had $20.4 million on hand, while the National Republican Senatorial Committee had $5.8 million in its bank account.

    "If Republicans are investing significant money in Idaho, that means they are losing at least five seats in 2008," said Nathan L. Gonzales, political editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. "If Idaho ends up the fire wall, they are in deep trouble."

    Fisher conceded that fundraising has been difficult in the current political climate, but she said the race for cash is picking up. And she predicted that if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) secures the Democratic presidential nomination, Republicans will come to the polls in droves.

    Schumer called that "grasping at straws," noting that when similar predictions about Clinton were made in her Senate races in New York, they proved to be untrue.

    Republican campaign operatives are privately fretting about a political environment that could remain deadly for their party.

    "About the only safe Republican Senate seats in '08 are the ones that aren't on the ballot," a GOP operative with extensive experience in Senate races said. "I don't see even the rosiest scenario where we don't end up losing more seats."

 

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    Sour Americans Hungry for Change as Election Approaches
    By Steven Thomma
    McClatchy Newspapers

    Sunday 02 September 2007

    Des Moines, Iowa - A year before they choose a new government for the post-Bush era, Americans are desperate to change the country's course.

    Most lean left, a U.S. population more liberal than at any time in a generation, hungering to end the Iraq war, turn inward and use the federal government to solve problems at home.

    Still, some want to turn farther right, demanding that the country fence off its Southern border, expel illegal immigrants and rein in a federal government grown fat under a Republican government they now dismiss as incompetent.

    One thing almost all Americans tend to agree on: They're deeply unhappy with the way things are going in the United States and eager to move on. There's virtually no appetite to extend the Bush era, as there was at the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency in 1988 or Bill Clinton's in 2000.

    The yearning to chart a new course is national:

     [ Just 1 in 5 Americans think the country is going in the right direction, the worst outlook since the Reagan-Bush era ended in 1992.

     [ Less than one-third of Americans like the way the current President Bush is handling his job, among the lowest ratings in half a century. The people had similarly dismal opinions just before they ended the Jimmy Carter era in 1980, the Kennedy-Johnson years in 1968 and the Roosevelt-Truman era in 1952.

     [ The ranks of people who want the government to help the poor have risen sharply since the early 1990s - dramatically among independents, but even among Republicans.

    The public mood is evident in Iowa, the heartland state that votes first for major-party presidential nominees and a pivotal swing state in the last two presidential elections.

    "People are very unhappy, very unsettled," said Megan Phillips, a teacher from Centerville, a town of about 6,000 in southern Iowa.

    Phillips once considered herself a proud Republican. Small-town. Anti-abortion. Pro-gun.

    But she soured on Bush's landmark education overhaul, the No Child Left Behind Act. And she turned against the war - and Bush - with a passion that underscores how deeply the national unity that rose up after 9-11 has given way to cynicism.

    "People don't trust anything coming out of Washington," she said. "When Bush says we're winning the war in Iraq, I say, 'Oh really?' The weapons of mass destruction weren't there. Why are we still there? We want our people to come home. There are so many things at home that need to be taken care of."

    Her husband, Matt, works two jobs, one in a power plant in town, the other raising cattle on their farm. He's also a Republican, but is starting to question the war and wonder whether the country should turn its focus homeward.

    "Maybe we shouldn't be there. Maybe we should get out," he said. "I would never vote for a Democrat, and certainly not for Hillary Clinton. ... But - and I hate to say it - but maybe a Democrat is more apt to get things done at home."

    As the cost of the war continues to rise, that's one big common refrain: Stop spending money in Iraq, and spend it at home. It's feeding a resurgence of support for liberal notions of using the federal government in ways that had been in decline for more than a decade.

    "We need to fix things," said Mary Howell, an independent from the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale. "We need to fix health care. We can spend billions in Iraq. But we have people at home who need help."

    Even with a healthy economy - a new census report this week showed the poverty rate declining for the first time this decade - a lot of people feel squeezed by gas prices, health-care costs and college tuition.

    That doesn't drive everyone to seek help from Washington, but most want something different.

    "Things are a mess," said George Wagner, an auto mechanic from Homestead, west of Iowa City. "Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Big business is running Washington. The little guy gets left behind."

    Wagner, a libertarian, also wants the country to look homeward.

    "We're not the policeman of the world. We should make friends with the people overseas we can do business with, secure the borders and take care of the people at home. Take care of the infrastructure. Older folks, medical stuff. If we stop spending so much overseas, we could give that money to churches to take care of people."

    Of course, there are those who feel good about the economy, who don't want to return to spending federal tax dollars to help the needy, who support the war.

    "Things are in pretty good shape," said Jim Granzow, a farmer and a Republican from Hubbard, Iowa.

    Even among most Republicans, however, there's disappointment in Bush and a restlessness for change. Stop illegal immigration. Curb runaway federal spending. Win in Iraq.

    Bill Hileman, a furniture salesman from Honey Creek, a small town near the Nebraska border, is a Republican who wouldn't want a third term for Bush.

    "I'd look for another Republican," Hileman said.

    His main complaint? He thinks Bush let illegal immigration run amok. "There are too many illegals, even here. It's hurting our economy and draining our resources."

    Chad Kluver, a pharmaceutical sales rep from the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny, voted for Bush but now wants someone who'll win the Iraq war.

    "I'm more jaded than anything else," he said. "We were misled. But it would be ridiculous to back out now. We need to finish what we started. If we back out now, it was all in vain. ... I want a candidate who can get it done as soon as possible and get the troops home."

    In a recent poll, 65 percent of Iowa Republicans said it was important to find a 2008 presidential candidate in the conservative mold of Reagan. Asked whether Bush fit that role, 8 percent said yes and 78 percent said no.

    The survey also found that 51 percent of Iowa Republicans want to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within six months.

    "It's a sour mood," said David Johnson, a former aide to Kansas Republican Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. His public relations firm, Strategic Vision, conducted the poll for corporate clients.

    "There's a feeling that things are not going well. There are concerns about the economy, concerns about Iraq. ... They don't want a third term for Bush, not even Republicans. Among Democrats, I've never seen anything like it. And independents just want to be done with him."

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