From The Guardian, 2/19/07:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2016131,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
Voters' hunger for change threatens Republican dream of eternal power
As anti-Bush sentiment grows, pollsters fear party has lost will to
govern
Ewen MacAskill and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Monday February 19, 2007
The Guardian
Republican strategists fear that an increasingly anti-Bush and
war-weary American public could deny the party the White House in
2008, frustrating the grand design of the party's political mastermind
Karl Rove for a permanent majority.
"I believe Republicans are in a more dangerous position than at any
time since 1974," said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and
commentator.
"Back then you had Watergate. You had economic recession, a military
collapse in Vietnam and had civil unrest. All those same ingredients
are present today."
Mr Luntz said his own polling and focus group research in the first
two states in the primary process - Iowa and New Hampshire - had
persuaded him that most Americans are hungry for a change.
That desire, he believes, is unlikely to be met by the Republican
candidates for 2008.
"The Republican party seems to have lost the will to govern," he said.
Among the frontrunners, John McCain, the 70-year-old Vietnam war
veteran, Arizona senator and maverick, is viewed by some as too old.
Mr McCain could also be hurt by his strong support for a troops
increase in Iraq, and his recent courtship of evangelical leaders whom
he once denounced as "agents of intolerance".
While the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has been climbing in the
polls since he declared his candidacy last week, the hero of the
September 11 attacks has limited appeal to the social conservatives
who are the bedrock of the party.
The thrice-married mayor will have to perform his own ideological
contortions to win over conservative Republicans who see him as too
liberal on abortion, gay rights and stem cell research.
Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who also made a
formal announcement last week, hopes to capitalise on his can-do
reputation as the successful chief executive officer who saved the
Salt Lake City Olympics from scandal and financial ruin.
But there are questions over whether the Christian right is prepared
to back a Mormon, whose religion many of them regard as little more
than a cult, and there is suspicion about whether his switch from a
liberal position on social issues is genuine or tactical.
Against the Democratic star power of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,
all three frontrunners and a second tier of largely conservative
candidates have left some of the party faithful cold.
"They all suck," wrote Erick Erickson on his Republican blog,
RedState.
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Republican 2008 chances are lookin' kinda rocky, eh?
Harry
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