WP: For GOP, Election Anxiety Mounts

Candidates for 2006 Need Convincing

Monday, October 10, 2005; Page A01

Republican politicians in multiple states have recently decided not to run for Senate next year, stirring anxiety among Washington operatives about the effectiveness of the party's recruiting efforts and whether this signals a broader decline in GOP congressional prospects.

Prominent Republicans have passed up races in North Dakota and West Virginia, both GOP-leaning states with potentially vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Earlier, Republican recruiters on Capitol Hill and at the White House failed to lure their first choices to run in Florida, Michigan and Vermont.

These setbacks have prompted grumbling. Some Republican operatives, including some who work closely with the White House, privately point to what they regard as a lackluster performance by Sen. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the group that heads fundraising and candidate recruitment for GOP senators.

But some strategists more sympathetic to Dole point the finger right back. With an unpopular war in Iraq, ethical controversies shadowing top Republicans in the House and Senate, and President Bush suffering the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, the waters look less inviting to politicians deciding whether to plunge into an election bid. Additionally, some Capitol Hill operatives complain that preoccupied senior White House officials have been less engaged in candidate recruitment than they were for the 2002 and 2004 elections. These sources would speak only on background because of the sensitivity of partisan strategies.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/09/AR2005100901332.html

thanks for the link.

This speaks for problems at the core. That's not just something that can easily patched up. Notice the report of Repugs finger pointing at each other. This isn't just a DLC/DNC in-fighting on policy. This is true intra-party blame-casting.

I think they are comfy as pie electronic voting is in and so is the fix.

Eliminate electronic voting....ALL of it and bring back citizen run elections and citizen run TABULATIONS.

Maybe they have had journalistic stem-cell therapy and have regrown their spine...

Or more likely, maybe they see which way the wind is blowing and giving the public the news they WANT to hear--that the GOP is on the rocks.

you're right, they won't worry about the elections. It's when governors across the country start tossing out those LIEbold machines and butterfly ballots.

.....Perhaps no state has frustrated the GOP elite more than Florida, where Sen. Bill Nelson (D) is trying for a second term after winning his first with 51 percent of the vote. After failing to persuade Rep. Katherine Harris to stay out of the race, GOP leaders began a public search for an alternative candidate. State House Speaker Allan Bense was courted by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) before bowing out. Dole took a private plane to New York in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade conservative commentator and former Florida representative Joe Scarborough to make the race.

Google the name Lori Klausutis.

:evilgrin:

I think the term, "grumbling" is putting it mildly. They deserve to do more then squirm after walking lock-step w/*&*!

I mean, shouldn't we be yelling "Hey you, corporate dude. Look at these approval ratings. Do you really want to hitch your campaign contribution up to that wagon? People might hate you. Watch out for your Buy Blue rating!" about now?

.......Another Republican, pollster Tony Fabrizio, said a recruiting chill was inevitable. Candidates "aren't stupid," he said. "They see the political landscape. You are asking them to make a huge personal sacrifice. It's a lot easier to make that sacrifice if you think there's a rainbow at the end."

Fabrizio accepts the general consensus among political prognosticators that Republicans are likely to keep their Senate and House majorities, in part because there are relatively few open seats, and Democrats must defend seats in many places that have been trending Republican. But he and others say the hope from earlier this year of fortifying these majorities is now considerably more remote.


The GOP holds 55 Senate seats, but unless the political climate brightens considerably in the next few months, some strategists and analysts believe the next Senate may resemble the one that followed the 2002 election, when Republicans held the narrowest of majorities.

From the article:

"The GOP holds 55 Senate seats, but unless the political climate brightens considerably in the next few months, some strategists and analysts believe the next Senate may resemble the one after the 2002 election, when Republicans held the narrowest of majorities."

While that's a bit more optimistic than I'm willing to be at this point I do feel that we have a good chance of taking back the majority. The political climate in this country is changing and changing fast.

know they're going to lose senators this election. I wasn't in the same room with the tv to be able to hear everything he said, but from the way he was talking I got the impression he believes they will lose the majority.

That would be STUPENDOUS.

WASHINGTON — For months, North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven had received the red carpet treatment in the nation's capital: President Bush invited the popular Republican to spend the night at the White House, gave him a ride on Air Force One, arranged prime seats at the inauguration and dispatched his political guru, Karl Rove, to meet with him.

It was all part of a high-profile campaign to persuade Hoeven to run against Sen. Kent Conrad (news, bio, voting record), a Democrat up for reelection in 2006 in a strongly pro-Bush, conservative state.

But at a time when Bush and Rove have been buffeted on a number of fronts, Hoeven added to their woes by declining to run.

His decision is a symptom of a broader problem bedeviling the vaunted Bush-Rove political machine as it gears up for the 2006 midterm elections. A confluence of problems that are driving down Bush's public approval ratings — high gas prices, ongoing violence in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the ethics problems hounding Rove and GOP congressional leaders — is also making it harder to persuade Republicans to seek Senate seats in 2006, strategists say.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/gopfeelsstingofcandidatesrejection

and haven't figured out how to be an 'Independent Republican' in these uncertain times.

That species is extinct, I think.

Rats are too smart for that.

Referring to the candidate the White House hoped would run against Robert Byrd:

"To say we threw everything and the kitchen sink at her would be an understatement," said one GOP official, who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing the White House's recruitment efforts.

But it was not enough to lure Capito out of her comfortable House seat and into a campaign that would surely have been a costly, bitter match attracting national attention.

Capito said her decision wasn't affected by Bush's low public approval ratings, but she acknowledged that the president might not be as much of an asset if she had made a Senate run as he was for her in the past.

"In 2002, when I ran for my second term, the president came in and gave me a 5 point bump up in the polls," Capito said. "Whether he has the ability to bump someone up at this point is a valid question."
(snip/)

Simply lovely reading! Thanks a lot.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/09/AR2005100901332.html

Republican politicians in multiple states have recently decided not to run for Senate next year, stirring anxiety among Washington operatives about the effectiveness of the party's recruiting efforts and whether this signals a broader decline in GOP congressional prospects.

Prominent Republicans have passed up races in North Dakota and West Virginia, both GOP-leaning states with potentially vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Earlier, Republican recruiters on Capitol Hill and at the White House failed to lure their first choices to run in Florida, Michigan and Vermont.

These setbacks have prompted grumbling. Some Republican operatives, including some who work closely with the White House, privately point to what they regard as a lackluster performance by Sen. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the group that heads fundraising and candidate recruitment for GOP senators.

they own the machines -- it's all window-dressing. Besides, the DEMS that DO win, or are allowed to, will roll over anyway.

In a pissy mood right about now....

what is happening to the country--just worry about being reelected to do nothing.

Anyone can see how blatantly immoral that is, having ownership by prominent Republicans, one of whom has publicly stated he would deliver the votes to _Bush last election.

I don't know why the Democratic leadership doesn't press them on this.

Maybe it has to start at the grass-roots level, as with petitioning, or whatever, but it's got to change.

It shouldn't stand as it is.