A Change In The Wind

by DemFromCT

Sometimes you can feel the wind blowing and sometimes you can't. But this feels different than the usual, "ah, this will finally be the last straw" observation about another scandal, another news artice, another blog post about Republican hubris, corruption, or just plain  bad policy.

The weathervanes are spinning.  Yesterday's Note is having trouble apologizing for Republicans, although they try mightily:

From the Washington Times: "All 55 Republican senators say they have never seen the Terri Schiavo political talking-points memo that Democrats say was circulated among Republicans during the floor debate over whether the federal government should intervene to prolong her life. A survey by The Washington Times found that every Republican said the memo was not crafted or distributed by him or her. Every one of them said he or she had not seen it until the memo was the subject of speculation in major news organs, particularly ABC News and The Washington Post." LINK

How about Sen. Cornyn's remarks? Between Cheney and Frist backing off them, there's

We'll leave it to the Hotline to summarize the conservative blogosphere's reaction, but suffice it to say — we haven't read anything that convinces us that any smart rightie blogger actually believes that Cornyn didn't cross the line.

Politically, his comments armed Democrats with a new Kalashnikov.

So how about DeLay?

We know enough about journalism and the separation of Post and Times reporting staffs to be reasonably confident that, say, Jennifer Palmieri didn't orchestrate two more front-page investigative stories about Tom DeLay, but both stories mention DeLay's trip to Moscow prominently, and we do get the strong sense that some committee somewhere, some career employee somewhere, maybe some colleague of DeLay's, is dishing out the scoops to (admittedly very talented) investigative reporters.

Tom DeLay is a dead man walking; he just doesn't know it yet. But if he is too stubborn to see it and brings Republicans down with him, well, let's just say the newest Gallup poll does not suggest DeLay can hide behind a moral agenda, and neither can Bush.

Some old stereotypes about the two parties have been reversed:

• By 55%-40%, respondents say Republicans, traditionally the party of limited government, are "trying to use the federal government to interfere with the private lives of most Americans" on moral values.

• By 53%-40%, they say Democrats, who sharply expanded government since the Depression, aren't trying to interfere on moral issues.

The debate over Schiavo has spotlighted the central role "values" issues — abortion, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage and the right to live or die — now play in politics.

Mark Rozell, a professor at George Mason University in Virginia who studies religion and politics, says the case has created a "clear backlash."

"It's one thing to look at religious conservatives as part of a broad coalition that makes up the Republican Party," he says. "It's entirely another if people think that religious conservatives are calling the shots in the Bush administration for what was a deeply personal situation."

The poll results are here. And did I mention it's Bush and the Repubs, not Dems, who are blamed for not fixing S.S. (question 15)? Or that 50% of the country now thinks that Bush  "deliberately misled   the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction" (question 18)?

Wel, in any case, don't miss MoDo's column today about why. In 2005 Repubs aren't just scaring other people. Now, they're scaring themselves.

[UPDATE] Don't miss similar thoughts (and not-so-similar thoughts) from First Read.

Comments

[David]

We are apparently at the point where the Republican movement can either snowball into true Nazi-like proportions or collapse on the foundations of its own evil karma. Don't think they don't know it, too. The Schiavo circus and the Social Security fiasco are obviously the wrong bandwagons for them, but blind nationalism has always served them well. Look for some other desperate act—either a new war or a new terrorist attack—as soon as the warm glow of the dead pope fades away.

[emptywheel]

And it's finally spring, to boot. It's almost enough to make an old cynic optimistic again!!

[richard lo cicero]

If progressive efforts to oust DeLay cause GOP house members to rally around him I say great! Love to run national campaign against Repubs with DeLay, Frist, Santorum, Coryn Etc. Thes guys make Newt look Churchillian!

[DHinMI]

Those government interferrence numbers are huge.

Huge.

Without seeing the crosstabs--which we never see in any media poll except those done by Survey USA--it's only a guess, but I suspect the shift to a majority claiming the GOP is using government to interfere has come about due to a shift by mostly swing voters, especially two groups. First, and probably less important in Presidential terms but possibly very important in some potentially competetive Congressional races in the northeast and prosperous suburban areas of the Midwest, are upscale moderates who've been shifting to the Dems since 1992. The other group that I suspect may be souring on the GOP over this morality crap is the prototypical Great Lakes region (MI, PA, OH, WI, IL) swing voters--the guns, beer and leave me the fuck alone libertarian-leaning people--mostly men--who might have voted for Kerry if it didn't come across like "a pansy who's reluctant to do what's necessary to keep us safe." And while they're more prevalent in the industrial Midwest, there's enough of them throughout the Ohio Valley--where there are probably a greater proportion of competetive Congressional seats than anywhere else in the country--and the marginal areas of the South, like AR and maybe NC and VA, that it could lead to some serious problems for the GOP in 2006.

[DemFromCT]

The WaPo poll at least publishes their regional data. from WSJ/NBC:

Republicans Splinter On Bush Agenda Poll Finds Rifts Opening Over Social Security, Judicial Filibusters, Schiavo Case

By JOHN HARWOOD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 7, 2005; Page A4

Almost three months into President Bush's second term, a raft of economic and social issues -- Social Security, immigration, gay marriage and the recent national debate over Terri Schiavo -- is splintering the Republican base.

After winning re-election on the strength of support from nine in 10 Republican voters, the president is seeing significant chunks of that base balk at major initiatives, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows. One-third of Republicans say Democrats in Congress should prevent Mr. Bush and party leaders from "going too far in pushing their agenda," and 41% oppose eliminating filibusters against Mr. Bush's judicial nominees -- the "nuclear option" that Senate Republican leaders are considering.

The Schiavo case has opened another rift. Though Mr. Bush and Republican congressional leaders acted to maximize the opportunity for reinserting Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube, 39% of Republicans said removing the tube was "the right thing to do," while 48% said it was wrong. About 18% of Republicans say they lost respect for Mr. Bush on the issue and 41% lost respect for Congress. The survey of 1,002 adults, conducted March 31-April 3, has a margin for error of 3.1 percentage points in either direction; the error margin for Republicans alone is 5.2 percentage points.

[DemFromCT]

more from wsj:

To be sure, Mr. Bush's agenda isn't the only development giving some Republicans heartburn lately. So are controversies surrounding House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. After a closed-door meeting yesterday in which Republicans generally rallied around their leader, former House Ethics Committee Joel Hefley said, "I hear a lot of negative stuff" about Mr. DeLay from constituents. In the poll, Mr. DeLay's negative rating among Americans overall inched up to 24% from 20% in January; his positive rating was unchanged at 17%, while 50% said they were neutral or had no opinion about him.

Even on tax cuts, Mr. Bush's signature first-term economic initiative, one in four Republicans now says tax cuts have "not been worth it" because they have increased the federal budget deficit and have led to reductions in government programs. Robust majorities of independents and Democrats agree, while 69% of Republicans say tax cuts have been worth it because they have strengthened the economy and allowed Americans to keep more of their own money.

The economy remains a concern for all Americans. Amid rising gasoline prices -- ranked as the second-most-closely watched issue of recent weeks after the Schiavo case -- 53% of those surveyed disapprove of the president's handling of the economy, up from 47% in January. The national mood has darkened somewhat in recent weeks, as 51% say the country is heading "on the wrong track" while just 34% say "in the right direction."

"We're in the midst of the tough stuff" in Mr. Bush's second-term agenda, Mr. McInturff says. He predicted that issues the White House intends to tackle later, such as overhauling the tax code, will help unify the party as the 2006 mid-term elections draw closer.

[DHinMI]

"Paid for by Russian lobbyists."

I think we need to start saying that as often as possible, because those polls numbers reinforce me belief that it will be harder to run against DeLay than it was against Gingrich for the simple fact that everyone knew the loudmouth Newt--I suspect more people knew him by just his first name than by just his last--and DeLay has largely stayed in the shadows. But like the House banking scandal cast a pall over the entire Congress, especially Dems, I think we need to start talking about how the "Republicans in Congress are protecting their fellow Republicans, even when those Republicans are taking money from lobbyists working for Russia."

Congressional Republicans+protecting corrupt Republicans+lobbyists+working for foreign rival=some voters will pay attention and doubt their Republican congressman, even if they don't remember the name of the House Minority Leader.