The GOP appears to be anchoring its ’06 campaign hopes on stigmatizing Democratic candidates as weak on Iraq and terrorism, according to L.A. Times reporters Doyle McManus and Peter Wallsten.
GOP leaders, including President Bush and Rep. John Boehner this week accused Democrats of “defeatism,” advocating “special priviledges for terorrists” and wanting to “wave the white flag of surrender.” But blaming the Democrats may be a very tough sell for the GOP, and their timing is not the best, as the authors explain:

The environment is not entirely hospitable. A car bomb killed scores of people in a busy Baghdad market Saturday, a day after the Army announced that American soldiers were accused of raping an Iraqi woman and then killing her and three family members. Polls find most voters say they want to see Democrats take control of Congress this fall.

Democrats will likely be ready for the GOP to do its worst. Responding to Boehner’s accusing the Dems of being soft on al-Qaeda, Brendan Daly, spokesman for House Minorty Leader Nancy Pelosi replied:

Republicans are resorting to their tired tactics of distort, distract and divide. Instead of actually doing something to protect our nation, such as implementing the 9/11 commission recommendations or hiring more border control agents, they are doing what that always do: trying to incite fear and attack Democrats. It won’t work.

A good strong reply, and it is likely that other Dem leaders will not hesitate to point out the Administration’s failure to secure America’s ports and the weak response to disaster in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as an indication of the Administration’s preparedness for possible terrorist acts. As the authors point out, races in the House, where the Dems are more likely to win a majority, will be less likely than the Senate to turn on foreign policy issues.

The new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll just out gives the GOP a lot to worry about. The poll, conducted 6/24-27, paints “a gloomy picture for the Republicans in Congress,” with Dems poised to make substantial gains in the November elections.
The poll indicates Dems enjoy a 14-point advantage among registered voters in races for congressional seats “if elections were held today.” The poll also reveals a widening gender gap, more like a gender gulf, really, with women now giving Dems a 26 point advantage in their congressional districts. The poll found that 54 percent of all respondents wanted the Dems to control both houses of congress.
The poll also indicates that, even though Bush apparently gets a small post-Zarqawi bump in his approval ratings, he is more of a liability for congressional candidates than an asset. More than one-third of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a congressional candidate who had Bush’s endorsement or who supported his policies, 45 percent said it would not matter and less than a fifth said they would be more likely to vote for a Bush-supported candidate.
The poll also addresses current opinion trends on a range of issues, including Iraq and immigration. For the time-challenged, LA Times columnist Ron Brownstein has a wrap-up here.

by Pete Ross
New Donkey’s Ed Kilgore has a post that nicely limns the SCOTUS decision on redistricting. As Kilgore explains:

It’s clear a sizeable majority of the Court has decided that mid-decade reversals of redistricting plans are not barred by the federal constitutution, and a less-sizeable majority refuses to consider re-redistricting as grounds for strong suspicion that illicit political gerrymandering has occurred. But the Court appears to be all over the place, as it has been for more than a decade, in determining when if ever political gerrymandering can violate the Constitution.
Meanwhile, a 5-4 majority of the Court ruled than one of the districts in the DeLay Map violates the Voting Right Act as a straightforward dilution of Hispanic voting strength. But the decision about how to deal with it was dumped back to a District Court in Texas, which must now decide whether there is anything they can do about it between now and November. Obviously, fixing one district could affect many others.

The SCOTUS decision Allowing the Texas legislature to redistrict twice in two years was clearly wrong and it encouraged abuse of political power. By upholding most of DeLay’s gerrymandering initiative, the High Court did the Democrats and the country no good, except for the finding that, yes, it did illegally disempower Latino voters in one of the districts and violate the Voting Rights Act. As Kilgore says “No one can any longer foster the illusion that the U.S. Supreme Court will do anything to stop the madness.” We’re going to be stuck with a GOP-dominated SCOTUS into the forseeable future, so the Dem strategy should assume little relief from the courts. The solution? Kilgore recommends:

But no one should forget that the one place in which a DeLay-style GOP partisan re-redistricting foundered was Colorado, for the simple reason that the state’s own constitution banned mid-decade redistricting. Looking ahead to the next decade, states should strongly consider emulating Colorado’s ban on the practice of overturning congressional and state legislative maps every time partisan control of state government solidifies or flips.

The Colorado model may indeed be a force for stability, but it may not be such a good thing in the long run for the Democratic Party, or the nation for that matter, given the rapid population increases of Latino and African Americans and the extraordinary mobility of Americans. State laws permitting redistricting once in mid-decade, as well as after every census, might better serve a healthy mix of both demographic reality and stability.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research has a new report “Swing Nation,” which offers clues for securing the support of swing voters. In the executive summary of the study Anna Greenberg and David Walker explain:

Swing voters embrace an agenda that invests more money in new clean energy, affordable health care for all and strengthening education with these investments paid for by eliminating recently passed tax cuts for corporations and people making over $200,000 a year. But swing voters also make plain their concerns about the deficit and government accountability.

The study, conducted 5/20-25, is based on a survey of “self-decribed Independents and near-independents” in “swing congressional districts” and “swing senate seats” identified by the Rothenberg Political Report, Charlie Cook and Larry Sabato. The survey reports that Dems have a strong lead among swing voters in key House races 45-28 percent, and an even larger lead among swing voters in swing state senate races, 53-31 percent. See the article for a complete list of swing districts and states.

A new poll in bellwether state Missouri has Democratic challengers taking the lead in campaigns for both U.S. Senate and Governor — and over incumbents. The poll, conducted 6/19-22 by Research 2000 Missouri, finds Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill, State Auditor, leading GOP Governor Jim Talent in the 2006 Senate race by 49-43 percent. McCaskill leads among independents by 14 points, 53-49. In the 2008 race for Governor, Democrat Jay Nixon, Missouri Attorney General, leads incumbent Republican Governor Matt Blunt by 50-40 percent. Among Independents, Nixon holds a 16 point lead, 57-31 percent.
This is great news for Dems, considering that Missouri is a near-perfect bellwether state, mirroring the national demographic profile closely and picking 26 of the last 27 Presidents.
Hint for Dems: The poll also found overwhelming support for a new tax! By a margin of 62-30, respondents favored increasing the tax on every pack of cigarettes by 80 cents — to help finance Medicaid, health care and smoking prevention. “Providing Medicaid coverage for the poor and disabled” was the leading concern of poll respondents, ahead of avoiding tax increases, education, the economy, gas prices and other concerns.

by Pete Ross
Paul Harris of the Guardian Unlimited Observer reports on the resignation of the Kansas GOP Chairman Mark Parkinson and his candidacy for Deputy Governor — as a Democrat. Writes Harris:

His defection to the Democrats sent shockwaves through a state deeply associated with the national Republican cause and the evangelical conservatives at its base. Nor was it just Parkinson’s leave-taking that left Republicans spluttering with rage and talking of betrayal. It was that as he left Parkinson lambasted his former party’s obsession with conservative and religious issues such as gay marriage, evolution and abortion.
Sitting in his headquarters, the new Democrat is sticking to his guns. Republicans in Kansas, he says, have let down their own people. ‘They were fixated on ideological issues that really don’t matter to people’s everyday lives. What matters is improving schools and creating jobs,’ he said. ‘I got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.’

Could this be a harbinger of a nation-wide trend of substance-hungry Republicans becoming Democrats? Maybe, suggests Harris:

…in a swath of heartland states such as Kansas, Democrats are seeing the first signs of their party’s rebirth. Parkinson is not alone in switching sides. In Virginia, Jim Webb, a one-time Reagan official, is seeking to be a Democrat senator. In South Carolina, top Republican prosecutor Barney Giese has defected after a spat with conservatives. Back in Kansas another top Republican, Paul Morrison, also joined the Democrats and is challenging a Republican to be the state attorney-general.
…Parkinson’s defection encouraged other moderates to abandon a party controlled by right-wing religious zealots. In political terms they are called Rinos, or Republicans in Name Only. If enough Rinos desert, the strict ideologues in the party are likely to drift further right.

Yeah, we know, this is largely anecdotal. But significant Rino defections have also been documented in recent polls (see Alan Abramowitz’s May 17 EDM post, for example). And if a former state GOP chairman is too through with his party, something probably is going on. Harris sees the trend as being influenced by high-performing Dems, in this case Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius :

One of the key reasons Kansas Democrats are in fighting mood is their governor, Kathleen Sibelius. Sibelius’s vote represents an island of Democratic blue in a sea of Republican red on the political map, and she has impressed by reaching the middle-ground voters in a startlingly successful first term. Shunning the hot-button social issues, she has focused on education, jobs and health. This has earned her approval ratings touching 68 per cent in a state that was overwhelmingly pro-Bush in 2004.
Sibelius has cracked the political holy grail: persuading heartland Republicans to vote Democrat. ‘Her style works here, and then bringing over Parkinson to the Democrats has been the coup of all coups,’ said Professor Bob Beatty, a political scientist at Washburn University near Topeka.

Sibelius appears to be a serious comer. True, Kansas Dems still face an uphill struggle. But they have a fighting spirit, well-expressed in a resonating slogan for their ’06 campaigns, “Hope in the Heartland” — may it be heard in all states.

Mid-term campaigners should consider a couple of good ideas for dealing with the GOP’s tactic of demonizing Dems with the “cut and run” label. The first one comes from Gadflyer Paul Waldman:

So how do they [Dems} get on offense? Simple: make it about Bush and the Republicans. When a reporter asks you, “The Republicans say you want to cut and run, what’s your response?”, do not – DO NOT – repeat the phrase “cut and run” in your answer. The answer should be about the Republicans, not about you: “The Republicans want to stay in Iraq forever. We want to figure out how we can redeploy our forces. While our troops are fighting and dying every day, Republicans tell us that everything in Iraq is going great. What planet are they living on? Do they have a plan to end our involvement there, or do they think our children and grandchildren should be dodging IEDs in Tal Afar, too?” Make it about THEM. Put THEM on the defensive. And when the reporter says, “Democrats are divided on this. How will you win in November if you’re divided?”, DON’T TAKE THE BAIT. Don’t talk about how the plan you favor differs from other Democratic plans. Talk about the Republicans, for God’s sake.

The second comes from a comment at MyDD by ralphlopez, who suggests:

“It’s not cutting and running, it’s getting the war on terror BACK ON TRACK, by securing the victory in Afghanistan, focusing on bin Laden, and getting our troops out from the middle of a civil war. Our presence in Iraq is LOSING the war on terror, not winning it…”

Then there’s the ever-quotable Rep John Murtha, also from the ralphlopez comment:

You know who wants us to stay in Iraq right now? Al Qaeda wants us there because it recruits people for them. China wants us there. North Korea wants us there. Russia wants us there.

Better if the ‘back on track’ slogan could be used without mentioning ‘cut and run,’ as Waldman argues. ‘Back on Track’ does evoke an image of a train out of control, which is as good a metaphor for the Administration’s Iraq policy as we’re likely to find, with the possible exception of a demolition derby.

by Pete Ross
The premier issue of The Democratic Strategist is out, with a host of progressive heavyweights contributing interesting articles, all of which are highly recommended. Today we plug TDS’s lead piece by My DD‘s Jerome Armstrong, “Replacing the Battleground Mentality with the Mapchanger Attitude in the Democratic Party,” a call-to-arms that opens with a stirring vision of victory:

Ten years from now, the Democratic Party will have fully broadened its election strategy beyond the battleground mentality that dominates strategic thinking today. Democrats will be a national party, leaving no uncontested race anywhere in the nation, and will have rebuilt a party infrastructure down to the precinct everywhere in the nation. The Democrats will have regained their majority status as the governing party, and the mapchanger approach to elections will have been the reason.

Armstrong lays out a persuasive case that cherry picking states, races and districts is a strategy that never really served the party well:

As the Democratic Party shrinks from a national party into a regional stronghold, the battleground also shrinks further and further. In the 1992 and the 1996 Presidential elections, with three candidates in the race, as many as 30 states were viewed as competitive battleground contests up through Election Day. In 2000, that number dropped to just 17 by Election Day. In 2004, the number of contested states early in the presidential contest stood at 18, and was whittled down to about eight by Election Day.
The battleground strategy – or more accurately obsession – that the Democratic establishment in DC pursues of narrowing electoral campaigns to ever shrinking “swing states” is self-defeating. It does not build any new converts to the party, it makes it easier for the Republicans to walk away with huge chunks of the country unchallenged and it starves the Democratic Parties in those “red” states.
…Further, the battleground mentality leaves half the country without a contest of ideas. We abandon progressives in rural areas of the country and let Republicans rule there, without even a contest – and those Republican incumbents then go out and raise money for Republican challengers in contested races.

Armstrong has a lot more to say about the merits of the “mapchanger” approach vs. the “battleground” strategy, and also the destructive effects of the paid consultant system. We’ll just conclude with this sample:

In contrast, the mapchanger attitude urges an aggressive and broad challenge to Republicans. It provides the national party with the best opportunity to utilize the tens of thousands of grassroots activists in every state and congressional district. The power of people becomes the strongest resource and gives the national Party the ability to pour resources into those states or districts that become surprisingly contested.

TDS will not be narrowly focused on short-term goals like winning the next (’06) election. Instead co-editors Stan Greenberg, Ruy Teixeira and William Galston and their writers will explore longer range strategies for building a permanent Democratic majority — a welcome and much needed challenge to be met by Democrats in every state.