There is a hope among some that maybe some people in the GOP will come around soon. Maybe they will start to crack, because they don’t want to go into the 2008 elections standing for the same policies that led to the 2006 sweep. I’ve shared those sentiments. But looking at the GOP primary, I think there is a good chance this will not happen.
There is a hope among some that maybe some people in the GOP will come around soon. Maybe they will start to crack, because they don’t want to go into the 2008 elections standing for the same policies that led to the 2006 sweep. I’ve shared those sentiments. But looking at the GOP primary, I think there is a good chance this will not happen. The GOP frontrunners are all very much for leaving our troops in Iraq until ‘victory’. None of them would even think about getting out or withdrawing. Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. Now, Romney has blamed Bush for the mistakes in Iraq. But no one is even close to conceding to reality and say it is time to go. Although the Republican members of the Iraq Study Group and people like Novak very much speak for a part of the Republican establishment who would like to mitigate the disaster in Iraq and start to get out, the people who would lead the party forward have already unequivocably stated they will stay the course.
The GOP base is still firmly with Bush. And although the GOP is unhappy with their presidential candidates, it isn’t because the candidates are pro-Iraq war or because they are pro-Bush’s surge. The right wing noise machine is quick to jump on anyone who has the audacity to say anything like Reid saying the Iraq war is lost. They ignore Buckley, they ignore Jim Bakker, they ignore Vigurie, they ignore Odom, it doesn’t matter. There is one GOP candidate who is against the Iraq war, Ron Paul, and they are trying to kick him out of the party.
So trying to get Republicans on the Hill to cross the aisle is not just asking them to leave Mr. lame duck 28%, it is also asking them to leave the leader of the Republican party for the next four years (if Rudy McRomney wins). And all three of them are holding strongly against our top candidates, despite all of them standing for leaving troops in Iraq until ‘victory’. Bush’s approval rating is very much tied to how the public feels about the war, but the GOP candidates’ approval ratings have not shown that correlation. Giuliani and McCain still have high favorability ratings from independents. The same independents that angry at Bush over the Iraq war and brought the Dems in power in Congress in 2006. I think part of the reason you see this is because of the incompetence theme being delivered time and time again when it comes to Iraq. If our problems are just about Bush’s incompetence, then we are saying with a more competent commander-in-chief, the Iraq war will go well. So Republican Senators and House members could only expect, breaking from Bush on the Iraq War, to be thanked for their troubles with ugly primary battles where their opponents call them surrender monkeys. And there is ZERO CHANCE any of the GOP frontrunners changes their minds about the war from now until the 2008 elections. I think this also factors into why Hagel doesn’t jump in the GOP primary to take Paul’s thunder and be a GOP candidate who wants to end the Iraq war. There aren’t people in the GOP ready to follow him, so he’s looking at possibly running as an independent.
Bottom line is, I don’t think it is correct to just think of the GOP members on the Hill having to choose bewteen 28% lame duck Bush and the 60% of Americans who want out of Iraq. In the fall, they won’t say enough is enough, because Giuliani, McCain, and Romney are full speed ahead with staying in Iraq until there is ‘victory’. A hypothetical veto-proof contingency of GOP Senators and GOP House members crossing the aisly would have to be ready to stand up for changing the entire direction of the Republican party in respect to Iraq and defying all of their presidential frontrunners. It won’t happen.
