Analysts have looked at 1994 and 1974 for hints as to what might occur in the 2006 elections. The better analogy is 1980 when the election moved over the last weekend from a tossup to a blowout for Ronald Reagan. A portion of the electorate shed its fears of Reagan's ineptitude ("the major cause of pollution is trees") and trigger-happy bluster in favor of the hope for an end to stagflation. [Delaying the release of our hostages in Iran until after the election, a trick pulled off by former CIA buddies of Bush Sr, Reagan's VP candidate, hardly hurt].
The '06 election numbers appear stuck. Democrats are set to take ~20 seats in the House and stand on the precipice of a tie in the Senate. How, then, to create the wave that makes it 40 seats and a Senate majority?
Most of what people know, or believe, about the candidates and their opponents is already out there. Between now and election day is the time to make that final right-brain connection that will drive voters to pull the right levers.
To most Americans, the world has become "unstuck", their confidence in the US to deal with that world has eroded, and their own lives have become only more difficult and complex. To tap into that discomfort and disquietude, the Dems should shift their message from the specific to the general, "Had Enough?","Send them a Message", "The Republicans Have Run Out of Gas". Pictures and phrases reinforcing the events that created this mess (9/11, Iraq, Katrina, High Gas Prices, Dubai taking over the ports) would be the background content. People (especially the "SUV Moms") have no trust in Republicans to reduce dependence on foreign oil, and the same people consider that to be the most important element in the fight against terrorism. That is a sentiment that can be addressed at the gut level. Reminding people that Bush will interpret a Republican victory as a mandate to pursue all his failed policies is the "hanging that focuses the mind".
Nonetheless, it is to be regretted that Democrats did not frontally attack Bush's credibility on national security. For example,
Pre-Katrina was a public replay of the secret pre-9/11. Bush ignored not only the August 8 PDB ("Bin Laden Wants to Attack the United States"), but also brushed off the July 10th "signals blinking red" warnings of George Tenet and Cofer Black. On June 26, 2001, Tom Friedman's column in the NYT ridiculed Bush's removing the FBI from Yemen (investigating the USS Cole attacks) and US ships from Bahrain because of Al-Qaeda "chatter" as a demonstration of weakness. If Tom Friedman 'got it', what excuse is there for Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice for blowing it?
Incapable of embarrassment or apology, Bush told the 9/11 Commission that "if my advisors had told me there was going to be an attack, I would have done everything in my power to prevent it".
Really? While the August 8 and July 10, 2001, briefings were behind closed doors, the entire world saw the approach and power of hurricane Katrina for days and days in advance. There was no question of "if" there was going to be an attack, or even "when" Katrina would reach shore, and, in the final days, the meteorologists were very close to predicting "where". Did George Bush "do everything in his power" to protect the American people by ensuring preparation for this attack?
Four years after 9/11 Bush cared so much about protecting the American people that he chose a political hack to run our most important emergency preparedness and rescue operation, and then, for good measure, told "Brownie" he was doing a "heckuva job" (presumably in selecting the right tie with which to appear on TV to explain his ineptitude). Is this evidence that he would have done, "everything in his power to protect the American people?"
Bush's reckless indifference pre-Katrina is very strong evidence that he was equally negligent pre-9/11. And yet, the Democrats have failed to make the connection. They should. After all, is Rummy or Condi less inept than Brownie? Weapons inspector David Kay calls Condi the worst national security advisor since the position was created. Even Robert McNamara was not deemed as inept by serially retiring generals as Donald Rumsfeld.
Terrorism has been a 'growth industry' under George Bush. Why the Democrats have allowed Bush to claim any credibility on protecting the country is baffling. Look what they have done to John Kerry for omitting the word "us". Instead of demanding an apology for his "a vote for a Democrat is a vote to give victory to the terrorists", the Democrats should be making the point that terrorism has flourished under George Bush, that he not only flubbed a clear opportunity to get bin Laden and made him a cult figure in the muslim world, but diverted the US from the real enemy to his enemy-of-choice in Iraq, where, again, he has flubbed the operation.
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