ArchPundit

One of the suggestions from many Republicans is that this year’s election is just a freak or that things will get back to normal by 2008 when the environment will look very different. The notion that you can predict what will be the top issue in two years is often true and no majority is permanent.

However, just as in 2005 I was able to suggest we were looking at a wave election, we can see where the country is headed for the next two years and it will be a tough two years for Republicans.

Looking around at the domestic scene, the Republican ethical scandals aren’t going anywhere. Abramoff is still cooperating and while there might be some Democrats in that investigation, there will be more of the party that was in power.

But more than that, all of the oversight hearings that Republicans didn’t hold for the last six years will now be held and there is a whole bunch of stuff going on at different agencies that haven’t made the major news outlets especially at EPA and Interior. My personal favorite is the closing of the EPA libraries, but even Novakula pointed out there is a bit of an exodus at the agency as they’ve figured out what’s coming.

Or just invite the loon appointed to be the head of family planning who is against contraception. Being against contraception is fine, being appointed to head the agency charged with providing low income women with contraception is like a Bush pinning a kick me sign on his back.

Only a completely incompetent Democratic majority could not be producing a press event every day to embarrass the administration.

That’s just the beginning of the problem for Republicans though. They are caught between a general public that has soured on the war and a base that is strongly supportive of it. From the CBS News poll released on the 11th, 57 percent of voters want a timetable to get out with 58 percent of independent voters agreeing and 71 percent of Democrats. In contrast, 61 percent of Republicans do not want to set a timetable.

The question for any potential Republican nominee then is how does one run with the base and then run to the center? There is a strong element of the Republican base that has tied everything to George Bush and defecting from that united front is considered being disloyal, yet there is very low confidence in George Bush and in particular his strategy for Iraq amongst non-Republicans.

The way out of that conundrum is to have a new policy that is effective or the start of a pullout.

As I said back in early 2005, Iraq isn’t getting any better while we are there. There is no sign of the President understanding how large of a disaster he has created and no suggestion that he wants to change course. His listening tour was only a photo op and the idea of adding more troops temporarily will fail, just as the strategy already failed in Baghdad. It is a case of doing the same thing over and over again despite it not working.

The Republican Party’s 2008 campaign seems to require a fidelity to staying in Iraq while appeasing social conservatives. Bush was able to do the second through the use of his personal story and his familiarity with evangelical language. Romney and McCain have no such ability and Brownback is like my dream GOP candidate to face.

GOP candidates are going to be facing an electorate that will continue to sour on the war and a domestic policy situation where firing up the evangelical base will be difficult to motivate. If this year looked bad, 2008 looks even worse.