Free Press –
Election Prediction
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Nearly 40 years ago, I campaigned for reelection as a Bucks County Commissioner. The dawn of a presidential election was on the near horizon. It was 1967. Richard Nixon was the obvious favorite to lead the Republican Party in 1968. Vice President Hubert Humphrey would oppose him.
President Lyndon Johnson had just announced that he would not seek reelection. He knew that the Vietnam War had reduced his popularity to near zero. In 1967, I campaigned on the theme, “This will be a Republican year.” America had turned 180 degrees from Barry Goldwater’s 1964 defeat.
Goldwater, the father of the conservative movement in American politics, was judged to be too extreme.
As I look at the midterm congressional election next month, I thought of that time, 40 years ago. Has the Republican Party become too extreme? If the answer is yes, Democrats will retake both houses of the congress and the Pennsylvania legislature as well.
How safe are Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick and State Representatives Paul Clymer?
Let’s address the easy part first. Clymer should have no trouble. He’s kept his nose clean and remains well under the radar screen…and most of all, he refused to take the illegal pay increase, which the legislature awarded itself. Clymer is the perfect mirror of the 145th district. He’s a fiscal conservative, opposes gambling, and is a devout Christian. True, he’s against a woman’s right to choose. But in the 145th district, his personal beliefs won’t hurt him.
It would if he had to run throughout Bucks County.
Can a politician with an extreme
philosophy win in 2006 in Bucks County or Pennsylvania or America? To put it
bluntly, is U.S. Senator Rick Santorum too extreme for Pennsylvania? Ditto for
I remember Lyndon Johnson’s successful presidential election in 1964. He painted Barry Goldwater as a lunatic…too extreme, just waiting to nuke North Vietnam.
Forty years have past.
How would Barry Goldwater, the founder of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, be judged in 2006? His granddaughter, CC Goldwater gave an interview to the New York Times (Aug.27) and HBO television (Sept. 18). What she revealed about her grandfather was startling.
It turns out that Goldwater was a pro-choice republican who believed that gays should be allowed to serve in the military, according to CC Goldwater. Remember, Barry Goldwater was a general in the air force. CC Goldwater believes that her grandfather would be viewed as a liberal today.
Let’s jump ahead to 2006. Can you imagine seeking reelection as a Republican incumbent? Republicans are jumping ship.
Look at what Republican Thomas Kean Jr. is saying in the New Jersey U. S. Senate race. Kean’s father was a popular New Jersey Governor. No fool, junior is playing upon his father’s name…just as U. S. Senate hopeful Bob Casey, Jr. is doing in Pennsylvania.
Kean Jr. realizes that he can’t tie his apron strings to George W. Bush. So Kean Jr. has chosen to buck the national Republican Party. In September, he called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Friday, Kean Jr. challenged Congressman Dennis Hastert to resign as House speaker over the congressional sex scandal. Kean Jr. says that Hastert should quit because he overlooked warnings about then- congressman Mark Foley of Florida.
“With the mid term elections less than five weeks away, the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that about half of likely voters say disclosures of corruption and scandal in Congress will be very-or extremely important when they enter the voting booth,” according to the Inquirer (Oct. 6).
“About two out of three of those voters said they would cast their allots for Democrats in house races, further complicating the political landscape for Republicans already struggling against negative public perceptions.”
And the most recent “Newsweek Magazine” poll claims that Americans favor Democrats on the subject of moral values (46 % to 32 %). Worse for the GOP, Americans believe that Democrats can do a better job with the war on terror.
Finally, President Bush is looking more inept, thanks to Bob Woodward’s new book. “Sixty-Minutes” interviewed the Washington Post editor October 1. (I’ve added Woodward’s book, “State of Denial” to my library.)
“If there’s a lesson from Bob Woodward’s latest book, “State of Denial,” it’s that the calamity that has unfolded over the past three years in Iraq was born of a ruinous mix of arrogance and naiveté from President Bush and his key deputies,” the lead editorial in USA Today began (Oct. 4). “Convinced that the war would be a walkover, they simply closed their ears to the many voices who warned of impending dangers.”
As we look at all this bad news,
can Congressman
How will the Bush war in Iraq play in the Eighth Congressional District? Will Fitzpatrick be able to distance himself from the President? Will Fitzpatrick’s opposition to federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, coupled with his pro-life stance cause liberal voters to reject him? On these two issues, Fitzpatrick and the President’s positions are identical.
In the next few weeks, I’ll be
interviewing
I believe that President Bush and Senator Santorum’s unpopularity does not bode well for any Pennsylvania Republican seeking election. My prediction is that 2006 will not be a Republican year.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith