Politico: Republicans Fear 2008 Meltdown

[RiverStone]

By: Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin
March 29, 2007 11:36 AM EST

Republicans across the country are warning that increasing public discontent toward President Bush, the Iraq war and the GOP brand in general threatens to send the party's 2008 campaign planning into a tailspin.

Already, the problems are having tangible effects. Some of the party's top recruits in key races from Colorado to Florida are refusing to run for Congress. Business executives -- the financial backbone of the GOP -- are sending more and more money to Democrats. Overall Republican fundraising is down sharply from the same time frame during the past two presidential elections.

Then there are the voters.

Polling data released this month confirm what GOP officials are picking up anecdotally: Swing voters are swinging away from Republicans at high velocity. Most alarming to GOP strategists is a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center that found 50 percent of those interviewed consider themselves a Democrat or leaning that way; only 35 percent tilt Republican.

more:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3353.html

:kick:

[Vincardog]

1. Slooooly I turned. Step By Step....

[hippiechick]

2. "the GOP brand"

Ugh. Pukeiferous. :puke:

[The Backlash Cometh]

27. aka corrupt, corrupt, corrupt.

But, if all it takes is money to become corrupt, follow the money.

[tularetom]

3. If this is being reported on Republico.com

it must really be about ten times worse than what they're claiming.

[AwakeAtLast]

36. I was thinking the exact same thing

Kinda like if Drudge reported it.

:hi:

[rfranklin]

4. don't worry...they're setting up the justice department so....

there will only be elections along the lines of the USSR model.

[Chimichurri]

5. Gimmicks and smoke screens only get you so far. Their uncompromising

support for Bush is only making matters worse for them.

[skipos]

6. Yet Dame Rudy beats most Dems in most polls, and McCain does well too

If they pick Dame Rudy or McCain, and we pick Hillary, I think they have a good shot of winning the presidency. Legitimately.

[theoldman]

12. I think that Fred Thompson would be the toughest to beat.

He is a very likable guy and would attract a lot of independents.

[skipos]

16. Yup. Him and Rudy are the toughest.

Thompson was polling even with Hillary in a recent poll (Obama still beat him). Though much of that probably has to do with how weak she is, as opposed to how strong he is, as a candidate.

[BurtWorm]

17. Polls now are virtually meaningless.

They only tell you about name recognition.

[skipos]

18. Yup. And when two candidates with equally high name recognition

go head to head and one (Dame Rudy) thumps another (Hillary) in poll after poll, that is a bad sign.

Huckabee vs. Richardson or Hunter vs. Dodd is useless. McCain, Dame Rudy and Hillary have near 100% name recognition so I wouldn't say those polls are useless.

[BurtWorm]

19. But it's *all* about name now.

At most it might also be about media reputation. Guess who the media love most.

[Firespirit]

20. I don't care for Hillary either

Don't want to start a flame war, though.

I agree with you. This poll is, IMO, being badly overplayed. In the environment of 2006, with a sex predator, a coverup, and corruption scandals galore, only 53% of the voters went for Democratic candidates in the end, and it came down to 9,000 votes in Virginia and 2,000 in Montana to give us the Senate.

Many people prefer one party over the other, but they make exceptions for specific individuals within the parties. I think that is the phenomenon that took place in 2006 and I wouldn't be surprised to see it again in 2008.

Finally... there are only a few states that are really in play.

[skipos]

22. And further

The reason we won big in 2006 was due to independents. In most senate races, @90% of Dems voted for the D, @90% of the Reps voted for the R, but the Dem candidates won most of the independents, and therefore won the elections. Hillary doesn't have good independent appeal. Dame Rudy does, and hence thumps her in most polls.

[devilgrrl]

7. Uhhhh, isn't "Politico" and Drudge Whore Site?

:puke:

[theoldman]

8. Check your history and you will find that the Republicans

never stay in power very long especially in congress.

[Robbien]

9. Remember Politico and Drudge arethisclose

I don't trust the story.

[SteppingRazor]

11. What's one got to do with the other?

:shrug:

[Robbien]

24. Appears if they may be one and the same, or if not veryveryclose

BREAKING: Drudge links to Politico 45 times during its two-month existence

As Media Matters for America has noted, Politico chief political correspondent Mike Allen's March 27 article, "Rookie Mistakes Plague Obama," was apparently flagged by Matt Drudge's website, The Drudge Report, approximately one hour before The Politico posted the article

much much more
http://mediamatters.org/items/200703290002

Drudge Sludge they name is Politico

[RiverStone]

13. Filters aside...clearly the rethugs are getting nervous

There is no way to filter one scandal on top of another scandal on top of a disastrous and lost Iraq policy.

When the rethugs start to air their own dirty laundry; it reminds us that indeed the pendulum may be swinging the other way - with momentum!

[BeyondGeography]

10. "Do you positively brand yourself, or do you negatively brand the other side?"

Hmmmmmm...I wonder which way they'll go?

[European Socialist]

14. Junior not going along with ISG, was a big blow to the Repukes.

2008 is out the window for the Pukes, barring a miracle.

[EstimatedProphet]

15. And these things always have a time lag too

So were now seeing the beginning. It will only increase over the next year.

[C_U_L8R]

21. imagine an ice cream cone dropped on a hot summer sidewalk

that's the republican party.

They are hopelessly beyond saving.

[UTUSN]

23. Beware the ides of The Politico - it's a Matt PUDGE clone, Mike ALLEN

*******QUOTE*******

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/27/polit...

Glenn Greenwald
Tuesday March 27, 2007 08:41 EST

Drudge and the Politico -- poisonously joined at the hip

(Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)

The new online political magazine, The Politico, is a pernicious new presence in our media landscape. As I noted the other day, it really is nothing more than the Drudge Report dressed up with the trappings of mainstream media credibility. Today, Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News writes on his blog about what is merely the latest episode (of many) proving how closely coordinated The Politico is with The Drudge Report. It is not hyperbole to say that the former is all but an arm of the latter.

Last night, The Politico's Mike Allen published a petty, trite hit piece on Barack Obama -- entitled Rookie Mistakes Plague Obama -- claiming that Obama "has also shown a tendency toward seemingly minor contradictions and rhetorical slips" and referencing "imprecise or incomplete statements by Obama over the years." As Bunch noticed, Allen's story was "highlighted on the Drudge Report no later than 18 minutes after it was filed by Allen (how does he do it!)." Drudge continues prominently to promote The Politico's story today:

As I noted earlier this week, The Politico has instantaneously become one of the most-linked sites (I would guess the single most-linked) on The Drudge Report. Drudge links produce a volume of traffic unlike any other. Central to the business and political plan of The Politico is, quite transparently, overt courting of Matt Drudge and active cooperation with him. ....

Allen, who was Time's White House correspondent before joining The Politico, has a relationship with the White House and with George Bush so affable that the President actually went out of his way at a recent Press Conference deliberately to plug The Politico while exchanging in giggly chatter with Allen. While at Time, Allen was typically in the forefront of the most predictable, petty and baseless Beltway smears. As but one amazing example, The Politico this week published an article -- precisely echoing Matt Drudge's headlined theme that the House was in "disarray" -- proclaiming in the first sentence that "Nancy Pelosi's honeymoon is over." ....

********UNQUOTE*******

[paparush]

25. They'll be ALL SMILES when Bush** Nukes Iran... 'cause he's a WAR president

[ThomWV]

26. "I'll never vote for another Republican as long as I live" You see it all the time

Even people calling into C-Span's Washington Journal say it all the time - the Republican Party is toast.

[Maven]

28. I'm sure they'll activate "Plan B"

+

[bleever]

29. Anyone thinking Fred Thompson shakes off the stink of the GOP

is encouraged by me, bleever, to support him in the primary.

:thumbsup: :7 :thumbsup:

[beltanefauve]

30. I found this interesting:

Gives credence to the Politico/Drudge connection, in my opinion.

"Bush's low approval ratings are an illustration. Some experienced GOP campaign strategists believe that there is virtually no chance that a Republican can succeed Bush if his approval ratings remain mired in the 30s. The Democratic strategy of investigating administration scandals and policy blunders is calculated to achieve exactly that goal -- and the burgeoning controversy over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys has given Democrats in Congress yet another inviting target.

Since when is Congressional oversight a "strategy"? And war crimes and corruption are a "policy blunder"?

[Gabi Hayes]

31. Because THAT EXACTLY was the thug strategy in the 90s: INVESTIGATE CLINTON relentlessly.

without letup.

by 98-99, the election was in sight, and they KNEW that keeping up the investigatory pressure would transfer the smear campaign from Clinton to his successor, no matter whom, but preferably Gore.

they didn't WANT for the impeachment to succeed, however, because that would put Gore in too strong a position.

they were more than happy to have him bear the onus of democratic "scandal," which the media were only too happy to trumpet over the entire adminstration's eight years.

once the campaign started, recall the battle cry of the Pugs, repeated at EVERY campaign stop, at the end of EVERY speech: restore honor and integrity to the White House.

It worked very well for them, and they're just revealing their own cynical strategy in this whorish piece of garbage. there was almost NEVER any there there during the Clinton Inquisition, but there's NEVER been, or will be, as much there as there is now there in this criminal enterprise. It will take decades of investigation to fully determine just HOW badly they've destroyed the government, the economy, the military, the judiciary, the environment, etc.

[Emit]

32. Yes! In a word, projection. n/t

[unblock]

33. most revealing is the correct usage of the term "democrat"

"50 percent of those interviewed consider themselves a democrat or leaning that way".

as opposed to:

"50 percent of those interviewed consider themselves democrat or leaning that way".

now THAT is as clear an indication that the republics are SO pre-2006.

[Senator]

34. Impeachment Would Take the Numbers to 65/25

And banish the neofascists for a generation.

But that's not very likely. Right now the DC LieberDems are congratulating themselves and their consultants -- constructing the delusion that it's something they've done that has brought about this manna from heaven. It's been their decades-long, dogged pursuit of that last half-percent of "swing voters" (which is as real a "voter fraud") that is finally, at long last, paying off.

Being the only alternative to war criminals and election thieves is not part of the calculation.

"Nope, nothing to do with it. It was those first 100 hours. You betcha."

--

[Ganja Ninja]

35. All is well. Stay the course and follow George to the sea.

:popcorn: It's funny, if the GOP wants to redeem themselves they have to impeach their own. It's the only way. They're screwed. :rofl: