Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 2005 (IPS) — In a new setback to U.S. President George W. Bush’s political standing that is certain to fuel the growing disarray within the ruling Republican Party, voters in two politically important states – Virginia and New Jersey – elected Democrats as governors in Tuesday’s off-year elections.

Of the two, the contest in Virginia between Republican Jerry Kilgore and Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine was particularly damaging to Bush, who won the state with solid majorities in both 2000 and 2004. Bush appeared personally with Kilgore to campaign on his behalf on election eve in what many observers noted carried some risk for both men.

As recently as last weekend, the race was a dead heat. But with virtually all of the votes counted late Tuesday, Kaine was leading by a comfortable six-percent margin, suggesting that Bush’s intervention may have doomed the Republican campaign.

“Bush put his wispy political prestige on the line in the Virginia governor’s race and lost Tuesday when the candidate he embraced in a last-minute campaign stop was soundly defeated,” wrote Associated Press political correspondent Ron Fournier.

Other political observers agreed that Kilgore’s poor showing, as well as the victory of Democratic Sen. John Corzine in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race and the defeat of a raft of reform measures California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had asked voters to approve by referendum, augured well for Democrats in the November 2006 mid-term Congressional elections.

While most analysts believe the Democrats still face an uphill fight in regaining control of either or both houses of Congress, Tuesday’s showing suggests that the goal may well be in reach, largely thanks to the Bush administration’s growing unpopularity.

Tuesday’s elections results are certain to strengthen the Democrats’ ability to recruit attractive candidates to run against Republican incumbents and, conversely, discourage potential Republican candidates from running against Democratic incumbents.

“I think the basic lesson is that Bush is at a point where he is going to pull down all Republicans a few points in 2006,” Larry Sabato, director of the Centre for Politics at the University of Virginia, told the Los Angeles Times. “He has got to restore a good 10 points on his popularity if Republicans are even going to hold their own in ’06.”

Whether he can do so, however, is increasingly doubtful, according to the latest public opinion polls, which show him continuing to sink ever lower.

In a survey released Tuesday before the vote, the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press found that Bush’s approval ratings had fallen to an unprecedented low of 36 percent, down from 40 percent just two weeks ago and from 50 percent since last January.

An analysis of the poll by the Centre’s highly regarded director, Andrew Kohout, said the continued hemorrhaging of support for the president reflects a further “souring of opinion among independents” or critical “swing” voters – just 29 percent approve of his performance, down from 47 percent at the beginning of the year – and “a significant loss of support within his own party, particularly among moderate Republicans”.

Self-described moderate and liberal Republicans make up some 37 percent of the party’s grassroots, according to the survey, which said approval of Bush’s performance among this group fell sharply – from 81 percent to 60 percent – between July and the end of September. That is the same period in which the news from Iraq worsened, the government stumbled badly in response to Hurricane Katrina, and oil prices reached record highs.

Kohout, who is resolutely non-partisan, even evoked former President Richard Nixon’s fall as a relevant benchmark, noting that Nixon’s approval ratings stood at 27 percent as he became engulfed in the Watergate scandal at a comparable stage in his second term. When Nixon resigned nine months later, his approval had slipped to 24 percent.

The main difference between the two presidents, Kohout noted, was that, unlike Nixon, Bush still enjoys the support of most Republican loyalists.

The fact that Pew would compare Bush with Nixon, however, underlines the sense of desperation that seems to have taken over Republicans since the summer. Their greatest fear is that they may be facing in next year’s elections a reversal of the 1994 political earthquake that delivered both houses of Congress into their hands for the first time in half a century.

“One year before the 2006 midterm elections, Republicans are facing the most adverse political conditions of the 11 years since they vaulted to power in Congress in 1994,” the Washington Post wrote in a front-page feature analysis Sunday that put the blame squarely on “unhappiness over the war in Iraq and dissatisfaction with the leadership of President Bush”.

As in 1994, more than two-thirds of the electorate believe that the country is “pretty seriously off on the wrong track”, and, while enthusiasm for Democrats remains quite restrained, relative disapproval of Republicans is at its highest. Moreover, Democrats were rated stronger on nine of 10 major issues of concern to voters.

The one exception – and Bush’s strongest suit until last summer – concerned the “U.S. campaign against terrorism”, in which the two parties are now tied.

As noted by Los Angeles Times political columnist, Republicans also had to be very worried about Kaine’s strong performance among swing voters in suburban and exurban communities that have played a major role in the Republican rise to dominance since 1994.

The fact that he prevailed in spite of his relatively liberal views – opposition both to capital punishment (in a state that executes more convicts per capita than almost any other) and to denying public benefits to undocumented immigrants – is certain to add to Republican unease, if not panic.

Indeed, a confidential poll of 39 professional Republican political consultants conducted late last week by The National Journal found that 30 of them believed that Congressional Republicans were either “very” or “somewhat likely” to distance themselves from the White House over the coming year in order to increase their chances of re-election.

That process appears well underway, as the administration has already suffered a series of revolts from Republican lawmakers since Hurricane Katrina. And some of the specifics of the Pew poll should add to the Republican gloom.

Although the public generally approves of Bush’s nomination for the Supreme Court, Judge Samuel Alito, it has not gained enough support to counteract more damaging developments, particularly surrounding Iraq.

According to Pew, the federal indictment 10 days ago of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the “outing” of a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer has had a significantly greater impact on public opinion, particularly with respect to perceptions of the administration’s honesty and credibility, than had been anticipated.

It found that a plurality of 42 percent believe that Libby, who enjoyed exceptional influence by virtue of Cheney’s unprecedented power as vice president, is guilty and that a similar plurality now believes that the administration “mostly lied” – in its pre-war rationales for invading Iraq. That marks an increase of 12 percent over the past 18 months and spells big trouble if Democrats continue to push aggressively for a major inquiry.