Speculations Over 2008 US Election

With the Senate poised for a showdown on Iraq today, Republicans along the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill appear trapped between their loyalty to President Bush and growing fears about the war's impact on the party's political fortunes.
As Democrats have vigorously and sometimes angrily debated the war among themselves, Republicans have marched in near lock step behind Bush. GOP officials acknowledge that the paucity of dissent, in the face of deep public discontent, could jeopardize their chances of holding the White House and regaining majorities in the House and Senate in 2008.
The party's quandary comes as the Senate prepares to begin debate today on a Democratic resolution that calls for withdrawing U.S. forces by March 31, 2008, something Democratic leaders describe as a goal, not a firm deadline. Whatever peril the resolution carries for Democrats, the debate will provide a public test of Republican unity.
The lack of debate inside the Republican Party reflects not just loyalty to the president but also a belief that Bush's policies still offer a chance for success in Iraq, GOP officials said.But that has done little to calm growing fears that Republicans will be punished politically unless there is a dramatic improvement in the course of the war and Americans' perceptions about it.
"I don't think there is a lot of Republican anxiety that we're doing the wrong thing and it's hurting us," said Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman from Minnesota. "There's a lot of feeling that we're doing the right thing and it's killing us."
War support among the party's elected officials and presidential candidates reflects the attitudes of rank-and-file Republican voters. "It doesn't take a pollster to look at data among Republican primary voters to see that President Bush is still popular and his Iraq strategy is popular", said a GOP pollster,Neil Newhouse.
.........."There is no question that there's a general-election risk," he said. "This is one of these issues where the position a Republican candidate takes in the primary may be detrimental to that candidate's health in the general election."
The decision to proceed with debate in the Senate was a significant shift by GOP leaders. Last month, Republicans used parliamentary tactics to block the Senate from debating a nonbinding resolution opposing Bush's plan to send more troops. This time, Democrats are back with a different measure: binding language that would restrict military actions in Iraq. But Republicans have decided to let that debate proceed -- at least for now.
"Changing times call for changing tactics," said Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.). "We're adjusting to the circumstances that we're confronted with."
For many Republicans, the stalemate is deeply frustrating, signaling that the party places loyalty to Bush ahead of addressing what has become voters' paramount concern.
"It hurts both sides, the fact that the debate hasn't occurred," said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), a moderate Republican. But, she added, "the disproportionate burden is borne by Republicans because we have a Republican president.".......................
"It's unfortunate that we haven't had an opportunity to vote for all the different alternatives that are out there", said Sen. John E. Sununu of New Hampshire, whose state is strongly antiwar, has already drawn several Democratic opponents for his 2008 reelection campaign.
Republicans say a moment of reckoning may come later this year, when there will be more evidence of whether the president's troop-increase policy is reducing sectarian violence and leading to political accommodation among Iraqi factions........
Even some of Bush's Republican critics questioned the timing of the Senate action. They want to give Bush's new plan a chance to work. "Let's just watch it for a while, and let's see," said Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.), who is seeking the 2008 GOP presidential nomination and opposed the plan when Bush announced it.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said: "We have a window of opportunity through the end of this year." But at that point, he added, "we've got to have some progress or you're going to start seeing more and more people saying we've got to try something new."
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, currently seen as the leading candidates for the Republican nomination, all support the troop increase, which has helped to dampen debate about the plan on the campaign trail.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) might have sparked more discussion about the wisdom of Bush's policies had he entered the GOP race on Monday, but his decision to announce that he had nothing to announce, at least for now, leaves the candidates mostly in unity behind Bush's current policy.
"I think there's a belief that this is bigger than trying to figure out the consequences for the primary or the general [election] and trying to nuance your position," said Mike DuHaime, Giuliani's campaign manager. "There's a belief we need to do the right thing and let the consequences be what they may."
...........A strategist for one GOP presidential campaign said unity among Republicans over the war is to be expected, given the attitudes toward terrorism and national security. But he added that there is a "chasm" between the views of rank-and-file Republicans and of the independents and moderate Democrats whose votes may be needed in 2008.
"It's like two different worlds," he said. "One is the family and the other is the general election, and Republicans are like, 'We'll deal with this later.' "
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