Down the ballot: Sounding the alarm
Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2008 8:54 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Congress, 2008
The GOP alarm has now been sounded. “The Republican defeat in a special Congressional contest in Mississippi sent waves of apprehension across an already troubled party Wednesday, with some senior Republicans urging Congressional candidates to distance themselves from President Bush to head off what could be heavy losses in the fall,” the New York Times reports. ‘This was a real wake-up call for us,” Robert M. Duncan, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in an interview. ‘We can’t let the Democrats take our issues. We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives and co-opt the middle and win these elections. We have to get the attention of our incumbents and candidates and make sure they understand this.’”
“Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia and former leader of his party’s Congressional campaign committee, issued a dire warning that the Republican Party had been severely damaged, in no small part because of its identification with President Bush. Mr. Davis said that, unless Republican candidates changed course, they could lose 20 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate. ‘They are canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate,’ Mr. Davis said in a memorandum. ‘The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006.’”
Politico adds, “The Republican defeat in Tuesday’s special election in Mississippi … was a clear sign that the GOP has the political equivalent of cancer that has spread throughout the body. Many House GOP operatives are privately predicting that the party could easily lose up to 20 seats this fall. Combined with the 30 seats that the GOP lost in 2006, that would leave the party facing a 70-vote deficit against Democrats in the House -- a state of powerlessness reminiscent of Republicans’ long wilderness years in the 1960s and ’70s.”
“Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who runs the committee tasked with helping elect Republicans to Congress, said Tuesday's defeat in Mississippi -- after losing GOP seats in other special elections in Illinois and Louisiana -- was evidence that 'a large section of the American people doesn't have confidence in the Republican Party.'"
The Boston Globe: “In addition to foreshadowing more losses for the party in November, the outcome appeared to undermine the notion that Senator Barack Obama could be a liability for other Democratic candidates in conservative regions.”
