Please forgive me for quoting myself, but on March 23rd I said this:
One fallout of the President’s new dismal approval rating is the certain death of this Social Security reform proposals. But what’s more important, retirement security for all Americans, or a few more gallons of liquid for one person in a persistent vegetative state?
Today a law professor in Tennessee says this:
Perhaps the Republicans think this will all be forgotten by 2006, or at least by 2008. And perhaps they’re counting on the Democrats to remain so feckless on national security that it won’t matter. Perhaps they’ll be right, but they’re certainly suffering short-term declines in the polls that hurt the President’s ability to act right now. I think that if he had a 60% approval rating, or even a 53% approval rating, he’d be making more progress on Social Security reform and on his various nominations. Was it worth this damage to solidify the social-conservative base? They seem to think so, but I’m not so sure.
It takes 18 days for Mossback’s observations to hit the New York Times, but 35 days for them to hit Instapundit. That’s not so “instant”, is it? But I digress. Jeff Jarvis is on the story as well. This being a hot topic, perhaps I should clarify it.
Bush is basically a moderate, centrist politician who attracts votes from the religious right by paying lip-service to their values issues without doing anything substantial for them. So he wins elections by combining the right’s votes with those of the moderate majority who actually like his policy positions. So moderates support Bush on a policy basis knowing the courts will prevent the religious right from getting anything. With his outrageous pandering on Schiavo and the pending nuclear option on judges, Bush support doesn’t look risk-free to moderates any more, and the religious right are waking up to the fact that they haven’t really got anything out of his presidency. So the carefully cobbled-together coalition of different interests can just as easily go against him as for him, and right now they’re against him. This is the problem with having it both ways – you can lose it both ways too.
So all that leaves for Bush is the people who support him because he’s a likable guy, even if he does hold hands with autocrats. Not a large group.
There’s no going back for Bush, because he can only win the moderates back by alienating the religious people, and vice versa. So we’re going to see a caretaker presidency for the next three years, nothing more.
It’s over for the Bush coalition.
UPDATE: Young Andy Sullivan notes the professor’s concerns, and muddles them up with his own issues. Sullivan has been a real piece of work lately, bashing the Catholic Church for its opposition to homosexual sodomy, but also bashing it for its coverup of, well, homosexual sodomy between priests and altar boys. He doesn’t see the connection, of course.
I’m not sure I agree that he’s centrist, but that’s a pretty good summary. The religious right really hasn’t been able to flex its muscles since 1992 when Bush I was voted out. I was wondering when they were going to figure out that Bush II hasn’t really done all that much for them.
On the other hand I get nervous sometimes. When we don’t have more important things to worry about (terrorism, war), sometimes they succeed in pushing their views on the rest of us, while loudly proclaiming they speak for everybody.
“Center-right” is probably more accurate than “centrist”, but then again there’s No Child Left Behind, the drugs entitlement, etc.
Pandering to the religious right has generally been a good deal because with the First Amendment religion is in chains and politicos can blame the courts when unable to deliver on the agenda. But if the courts are corrupted, we will have a bit of a problem.
Secular people are willing to advocate on behalf of religious people, thinking they all believe in separation of church and state. But many of the folks in the religious fringe don’t actually accept that concept and genuinely want theocracy. That was the lesson of Schiavo.
As we switch scorecards from judges in Schiavo to NYT/Huffington to well-paying vanity websites, tell us what will define the failure of this Bush coalition. We’ve got three years to watch it play out, so you’ve got quite the nice horizon to play with. I’m interested mainly because you seem quite sure that it’s a foregone conclusion based on some polls.
I think you’re dead wrong about the caretaker bit. Jarvis and Reynolds are media players. Their opinions are about as representative of voters as that Huffington broad and her friends.
Which, by the way, “major change in the blogosphere”? Never would have pegged you for an E! person. Although you do talk about a lot of tv people.