Editorial: Angst among Republicans

Thursday, April 20, 2006 | 7:42 a.m.

There has been a lot of teeth-gnashing lately in Republican circles about the November elections. This nervousness has been because of President Bush's anemic job-approval ratings, public unease over the direction of the war in Iraq and concerns about the economy that have been exacerbated by rising gasoline prices.

Partly in response to these concerns, Bush has been making major changes to the White House operations, bringing in a new chief of staff, for example. The president hopes that the new blood will revitalize the White House's agenda.

Republicans, who control both the House and Senate, are looking to regain their footing - and fast. It even has gotten to the point that Republicans are concerned that Bush's woes could be a drag on all Republicans, including in local and state races around the country.

Some Republican political strategists believe the answer to their candidates' woes increasingly rests with mobilizing the party's right-wing political base. The thinking goes that the right wing of the Republican Party, the activists who can make a difference in a close race, have grown disenchanted with Bush.

As The New York Times reported Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who is eyeing a presidential bid in 2008, is looking to schedule a vote as soon as June on a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage. The Republicans' move to nationalize an issue - marriage - that has always been left to the states is more than a tad hypocritical since the GOP loves to boast it is the party of limited government.

(Then again, this is the same so-called "fiscally conservative" party that has run up monster federal deficits in the past several years. The burgeoning federal debt probably is what is causing most of the angst among the Republican base, but don't expect the president and the Republican-controlled Congress to do anything serious about it - they're too wedded to Bush's tax cuts that have caused so much red ink.)

No one can accuse national Republicans of being faint of heart when it comes to making naked, blatant appeals to the party's base. One would think that Republicans would have learned their lesson - and still be smarting - over their botched involvement in the Terri Schiavo case. That, too, was supposed to play well with the Republican base, but it sure backfired on congressional Republicans.

All the Schiavo case did was end up creating a public backlash, as moderates and true conservatives - those who believe in the rule of law and the ability of judges to decide cases on the facts and the law without resorting to judicial activism - saw right through the pandering.

Republican congressional leaders just don't seem to get it. The American people are worried about the quality of education, increasingly expensive health care, rising gasoline prices and a Congress that blindly is passing on further debt to future generations to pay for Bush's tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy.

Republican leaders have been in control of Congress now for so long that they have lost touch with the American people. If they think mobilizing the right-wing base will do the trick, they very well may be in for a rude awakening on Election Day.