Knight Ridder reports that there are foundational divisions developing between President Bush and Republican lawmakers who fear that GOP congressional dominance could be at risk.
As the KR story puts it, the Miers nomination brought the conflict to the boiling point, but it had been simmering for some time, fueled by discontent over Bush's management of the Iraq war, his response to Hurricane Katrina and his collapsing public support as measured by opinion polls.
Republican lawmakers, unlike Bush, will face re-election next year and in 2008 and some appear to be getting nervous about their prospects.
As Republicans distance themselves from the president, lawmakers and strategists wonder whether conservative anger at the Miers nomination could do their party irreparable harm.
Democrats need a net gain of six seats to recapture control of the Senate - a task made easier if Bush alienates religious conservative voters who helped give him his margin of victory in 2004.
"That can hurt Republicans in very, very close races," said Tony Fabrizio, a Washington-based Republican pollster and political strategist. "If there is no enthusiasm, or if the backbone of the street organization feels disenfranchised or disillusioned, there is no reason for them to go out and do anything."
Such disillusionment could be especially problematic for Republican senators Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Jim Talent in Missouri and Mike DeWine in Ohio, seeking re-election in close races. Republican senators with 2008 presidential aspirations, such as Sam Brownback of Kansas and George Allen of Virginia, old allies of religious conservatives, will also need help from religious conservatives.
The piece speculates that Republican senators might begin to urge the withdrawal of the Miers nomination. This would be incendiary and would hardly serve to ease the tension between lawmakers and the White House.
Do Democrats have the strategic vision to exploit this situation? Could be.
Conservatives bristled even more when Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic Leader, volunteered that he'd urged Bush to name Miers. Reid appeared with Miers at his side last Monday, applauding her nomination.Conservatives wanted a war with the left and they ended up having it with their own president.
"People who want to see the court shift ... thought there would be a battle (taking) place to make that happen," said Tony Perkins, president of the Christian conservative Family Research Council. "I don't think they envisioned Republican and Democratic senators holding hands, standing in a circle singing Kumbaya about this nominee."
2 comments:
Both sides can easily see that Harriett Miers is indeed the "obsequious instrument" that Alexander Hamilton wrote of in Federalist 76. And the Republicans are embarassed by it.
That's her new nickname.
Harriett "Obsequious Instrument" Miers.
I don't see how she makes it, the hearing, I predict, will be a disaster. She's a lightweight, and doesn't know squat about Constitutional law, or even the SCOTUS at all.
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