The Six Year Itch
Washington Post
Bush's Midterm Challenge
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 29, 2006; Page A01
President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday night marks the
opening of a midterm election year eagerly anticipated by Democrats and fraught
with worries for Republicans, whose hopes in November may depend in large part
on how successfully Bush can turn around his troubled presidency.
After his reelection victory in 2004, Bush often pointed out that he would
never again be on a ballot as a candidate. But the coming year in many ways
represents another national campaign for the president, aimed at preserving the
gains his party has made in the past five years, as well as rehabilitating a
reputation that has come under brutal assault from the opposition in recent
months.
There is no doubt that Bush intends to run this campaign as forcefully as if
he were on the ballot himself. He ended 2005, the worst year of his presidency,
with an aggressive defense of his Iraq policies, and he has begun the new year
with an uncompromising justification of his policy of warrantless domestic
surveillance.
Tuesday's speech, with its massive prime-time audience, may be the most
important forum Bush has all year to try to seize the initiative from the
Democrats and frame the election season on his terms. But he will be standing
in the House as a far less formidable politician than when he stood on the same
podium a year ago. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Bush with a lower
approval rating than any postwar president at the start of his sixth year in
office -- with the exception of Richard M. Nixon, who was crippled by
Watergate.
Bush's approval rating now stands at 42 percent, down from 46 percent at the
beginning of the year, although still three percentage points higher than the
low point of his presidency last November.
The poll also shows that the public prefers the direction Democrats in
Congress would take the country as opposed to the path set by the president,
that Americans trust Democrats over Republicans to address the country's
biggest problems and that they strongly favor Democrats over Republicans in
their vote for the House.
The political stakes this year are especially high. What happens will affect
not only the final years of Bush's presidency, but also will shape what is
likely to be an even bigger election for his successor in 2008. Republicans
have been on the ascendancy throughout the Bush presidency, but they begin the
year not only resigned to some losses in Congress but also fearful that, under
a worst-case scenario, an eruption of voter dissatisfaction could cost them
control of the House or Senate or both.
Uniting Republicans
Gary Jacobson, a political science professor at the University of California
at San Diego, said the key from Bush's vantage point is maintaining
near-universal support for the president from Republicans. Last fall, when
Bush's approval ratings fell to their lowest point, he suffered erosion among
Republicans, but later polls have shown that he regained some of that support.
"As long as he can hold support of his own partisans, he can keep the
Republicans in Congress from getting too nervous," Jacobson said.
Bush also has some intangible assets. The first is that Bush has proved to
be a skilled and effective political candidate who beat the odds in the past
and would like nothing better than to upset conventional assumptions again this
year. The other is that Democrats must take maximum advantage of every
opportunity because the number of truly competitive House districts is low by
historical standards.
Bush won reelection in 2004 with a lower approval rating than any other
reelected president of the post-World War II era, save for Harry S. Truman.
Rhodes Cook, an independent political analyst, said Bush's overall approval
rating may be less damaging politically than it was for other presidents. "His
strength is in fundraising and mobilizing the base," Cook said. "He can still
do both very well."
Democrats see the political landscape as the most favorable to them since
Bush took office. They view the war in Iraq as a continuing political burden
for the administration, and hope to reap gains on the corruption issue,
epitomized by the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. "Any reasonable reading of
the trends would suggest that Democrats can expect significant gains this
November," said Paul Harstad, a Democratic pollster. "That includes historical
patterns, Republican scandals and a growing realization of the insidious cost
of unchallenged Republican rule."
But Bush and his team believe they can change the equation. White House
Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove put Democrats on notice a week ago when he
promised a campaign of sharp contrasts on national security, taxes and the
economy, and judicial philosophy. That signaled a rerun of previous Bush
campaigns, in which Republicans forced Democrats into a debate on national
security and terrorism, polarized the electorate, and used those and other
issues to mobilize and turn out rank-and-file Republicans in large numbers.
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman offered a cautious
overall forecast for the midterms, saying he expects a tough year and knows
that the party in power often loses seats in midterm races. "We have a
historical challenge to overcome," he said. "I believe we will overcome that. I
believe we will maintain our majorities in the House and the Senate."
The 'Six-Year Itch'
History appears to favor the Democrats. Midterm elections in the sixth year
of a two-term presidency have proved particularly difficult for the party in
the White House. Republicans suffered significant losses in the midterm
elections of 1958, 1974 and 1986, the sixth year of presidency for Dwight
Eisenhower, Nixon and Ronald Reagan, respectively. Democrats took a bath in
1966, the sixth year of the combined administrations of John F. Kennedy and
Lyndon B. Johnson.
But there was a notable anomaly. In 1998, aided by public backlash against
Republican calls for impeachment, Democrats gained seats in the House and held
even in the Senate in Bill Clinton's sixth year in office.
Whether that was an aberration or the disintegration of the pattern of the
"six-year itch" will not be clear until November. Nor will it be clear, even if
the Democrats gain nominal ground in November, whether that signals a broader
shift away from the Republicans that could carry over to 2008 or was merely an
outcome typical of midterm elections.
The Post-ABC News poll offers a revealing portrait of a restless electorate
at the start of the campaign year. By 51 percent to 35 percent, Americans said
they preferred to go in the direction outlined by congressional Democrats
rather than the direction established by the president. On the eve of last
year's State of the Union address, 45 percent said they preferred to follow the
path of the president, compared with 39 percent who said they favored the
Democrats' course.
By 54 percent to 38 percent, voters surveyed said they would vote for the
Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate for the House in November.
That is one of the largest margins favoring the Democrats in two decades,
although the gerrymandered House districts mean that incumbents are safer today
than they were in the past.
By 51 percent to 37 percent, Americans said they trust the Democrats more
than the Republicans with the main problems facing the country over the next
few years, the first time since spring 1992 that Democrats have gained more
than 50 percent support on that question.
Four in 10 (43 percent) surveyed said they approve of the way Congress is
doing its job, while 64 percent said they approve of the job their own member
of the House is doing. In comparison, in March 1994, the year Republicans
captured control of the House and Senate, approval of the Democratic-controlled
Congress stood at 35 percent, with 62 percent approving the job their own House
member was doing.
Democrats have gained ground in the past two months on two other measures.
The public sees Democrats as more likely to stand up to lobbyists and
special-interest groups, 46 percent to 27 percent. In December, Democrats held
a lead of eight percentage points. Republicans still are viewed as having
stronger leaders, but Democrats have narrowed that gap by more than half.
A total of 1,002 randomly selected adults were interviewed nationally Jan.
23-26 for the Post-ABC News survey. The margin of sampling error for the
overall results is plus or minus three percentage points.
Front-Burner Issues
In the latest poll, Bush received negative marks for his handling of Iraq,
the federal budget deficit, ethics in government, prescription drugs for the
elderly, the economy, immigration, health care and taxes. Only on terrorism did
the poll find that more than 50 percent of Americans approved of his
performance.
Where Bush has dropped significantly is among independent voters. His
approval rating in the latest Post-ABC poll among independents is 37 percent.
The Post-ABC News poll showed that Americans remain far from optimistic about
the economy, despite steady growth. Forty percent called the economy good or
excellent, down from 45 percent in December.
Democrats believe events on the ground, at home and abroad, will override
political strategy and tactics this year. "If the economy behaves on the upside
of the range and things go better than expected in Iraq, then Republicans have
a fighting chance to limit their losses," said William A. Galston, a Clinton
administration official now at the Brookings Institution. "If not, it's going
to be a long, grim fall for the Republican Party."
Assistant polling director Claudia Deane contributed to this report.
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