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WASHINGTON: Superficially, the 2008 US presidential election should
be a nightmare for Republicans, with political trends, poll numbers,
an unpopular war and voter angst auguring a Democrat in the White
House.
President George W. Bush’s sagging opinion
poll ratings and the drubbing handed to Republicans in November’s
congressional polls present leading party presidential hopes like
former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani with a thorny political
problem.
“I think the [Republican Party] is going to
have difficulty mobilizing the kind of energy that boosted turnout
in 2004,” said Linda Fowler, professor of political science at
Dartmouth College.
Polls show that while unpopular countrywide,
Bush still retains the affection of some in the hardcore Republican
base, and the war is less unpopular with that section of the
electorate than with the country at large.
So party presidential hopefuls face a tricky set
of choices.
“Republicans have to find a way to represent a
future that is different from President Bush’s administration,
without getting involved in a fight with President Bush because
it’s a very delicate balance,” former Republican House speaker
Newt Gingrich said on ABC television.
Some Republican candidates have gingerly tried
to put distance between themselves and Washington Republicans, in
the time honored anti-establishment tactic.
“We’re going to change Washington,
Republicans have to put our own house in order,” said former
Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who leads Republican 2008 polls
in early states Iowa and New Hampshire, in a campaign ad.
Some Republicans fear that come next year, a
familiar enemy may be standing in their way.
Even Bush is considering the prospect that
former US First Lady Hillary Clinton, hoping to become America’s
first woman president, would be the Democratic nominee.
Despite her hard-hitting political machine, her
husband’s history of defying Republicans and an aura of history in
the making around her campaign, some Republicans are hoping Senator
Clinton does win the Democratic nomination.
Giuliani, partly to offset his lukewarm appeal
to many conservatives, is presenting himself as a Republican
candidate who can take on the Democrats in traditional strongholds
like New York and California.
Last month, he challenged Clinton head on,
rebuking her conduct toward top Iraq war General David Petraeus in a
Senate hearing.
The tactic helped Giuliani on two levels—it
allowed him to burnish his own national security credentials, and
pose as the figure with the stature to take on Clinton—still a
hate figure among many conservatives.
Some observers believe Clinton’s presence on
the ballot could motivate Republicans to vote, even if they remain
unimpressed by their own nominee.
Some Clinton skeptics talk of her “high
negatives”—the poll ratings of people who dislike her, and
several recent media reports have questioned whether her name on
top of the ticket could drag down lawmakers in marginal seats.
Dean Spiliotes, a New Hampshire political
expert, argued that a Republican candidate might be tempted to
revive memories of the scandal-plagued years when a Clinton was in
the White House, between 1993 and 2001.
--AFP
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