WASHINGTON: US public approval ratings for President George W. Bush and for Republicans in general have reached near-historic lows this week.
Key factors include smoldering resentments over the war, worries about other international hot spots such as Afghanistan and Iran, government failures in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, high gasoline prices, corruption scandals that tainted the GOP image — and now, crowding out all of that for the electorate’s attention, an economy spiraling into what many economists say will be the worst recession in decades.
All this has translated into the most energized presidential campaign in a generation; there is record early voting in Indiana and around the country.
But while Hoosier voters seem to have their minds made up, both candidates know getting those voters to the polls in Indiana is more important than it’s been in 40 years. North Carolina also is one of the states — along with two others in what had been seen as the reliably Republican South, Florida and Virginia — where surging Democratic challengers are boosting hopes of the biggest senatorial gain by a single party since the 1980 Ronald Reagan landslide, when the GOP picked up a dozen seats.
As for the Senate, there’s a chance the Democrats could lose a seat in Louisiana, but they currently are favored to take at least five seats away from the Republicans — in Virginia, Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire and New Mexico.
Four more races are tossups — in Mississippi, Minnesota, Oregon and North Carolina. And Democrats are still within striking distance in three other states: Maine, where a hard-fought race has been under way for two years, and in contests that have only recently become genuine opportunities for the party in Kentucky and Georgia.
In Minnesota, for example, the hottest campaign there this year pits a veteran Republican politician against a Democratic newcomer and has people debating the need for change and which candidate can help fix the economy.
It’s not the presidential race between McCain and Obama that has people in this Minneapolis suburb buzzing. It’s the close, costly and contentious US Senate contest between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken, a comedian, writer and first-time candidate. Over in the House, an organization known as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has pursued takeover opportunities in districts where Republican control long appeared firm.
The party has pulled into a clear lead in eight districts now represented by Republicans: in Alaska, rural Arizona, exurban Chicago, the Virginia suburbs of Washington and two seats in and near Orlando.
Bush lost upstate New York, by only 2 percentage points.
Contests in another 17 districts now held by Republicans are going right down to the wire as true tossups; in almost two dozen more races for GOP-held seats, the incumbent party has only a slight edge, and a Democratic takeover is highly plausible. Of these 40 races, 36 are in districts that favored Bush over John Kerry four years ago.
What that means is that the Democrats are again taking the fight to Republicans on their own home turf even after taking away 33 seats from the GOP in the midterm election and subsequent special elections - with 23 of those victories in districts that wanted Bush re-elected.
Of the 33 Congressional seats that have gone Democratic since the fall of 2006, only one is rated as even leaning toward a Republican take-back. And that is the South Florida seat where freshman Tim Mahoney - who won mainly because the incumbent, Mark Foley, was exposed as making inappropriate advances toward underage male congressional pages - has recently become embroiled in his own scandal involving extramarital sex and a congressional employee.
Without a doubt, the degree to which the reach of these Republican leaders exceeded their grasp has fueled the Democrats’ current momentum in congressional politics. Angry voters appear prepared to complete the purge of Republicans from power that began when they were stripped of their House and Senate majorities two years ago.
Meanwhile, the art of picking Republican districts to target, and recruiting and raising money to back the challengers, has been handled adeptly by the lawmakers put in charge of the party’s national campaign committees.
Charles Schumer of New York is running his second campaign for the DSCC; Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is at the helm of the DCCC after acting as top lieutenant in 2006 to Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who now chairs the House Democratic Caucus.
