Posted on 03/28/2006 7:52:53 PM PST by Karl Rand
Republican pollster Jan van Lohuizen, in a memo written for RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, warns that if members of Congress try to drive a wedge between themselves and Pres. Bush, it'd be akin to adding weight to an anchor. GOpers are "W Brand Republicans" whether they like it or not. And van Louhizen, who has polled (often secretly) for the Bush White House under the RNC aegis for years, is worried about low turnout.
Time Magazine first reported on the memo this weekend, but the full text is below.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com ...
To: Ken Mehlman From: Jan van Lohuizen Date: March 3, 2006 Re: Bush -- Congressional Republicans
Per our conversation, we took another look at the way voters, Republicans specifically, link President Bush and Republicans in the House and the Senate. There are several points worth making:
1. President Bush continues to have the strong loyal support of Republican voters. Despite slippage in approval ratings among all voters, the President's job approval among Republicans continues to be very high. Most members will be elected with between 80% and 100% of their support coming from Republicans. I don't see that Republicans driving a wedge between themselves and the President is a good election strategy.
2. My read of the current environment is that our problem will be turnout. '06 could become an election like '82 or '84. In '82 Republicans showed up at relatively normal turnout rates, while Democrats, because they were angry, showed up at abnormally high turnout rates. In '94, Republican turnout was elevated, while Democratic turnout was depressed. We have every reason to believe '06 could become the inverse of '82. We don't see signs of a depressed Republican turnout yet, but we have every reason to believe Democrats will turn out in high numbers. Anything we do to depress turnout, by not running as a unified party for instance, could very well lead to serious consequences in November.
3. The President is seen universally as the face of the Republican Party. We are now brand W. Republicans. The following chart shows the extremely close correlation between the President's image and overall ratings of the party.
President Bush drives our image and will do so until we have real national front-runners for the '08 nomination. Attacking the President is counter productive for all Republicans, not just the candidates launching the attacks. If he drops, we all drop.
Screw the Republicans. Vote Democratic in the U.S. House and tell the Democrats to impeach Bush.
Did Pat Toomey drive a wedge between himself and the President?
I was thinking hold the house.....kick out the senators.
SWill that be before or after they ban the New Media, take away your guns, impose thought crime, and open the borders to let all the illegals in?
They will all be scurrying to him come time to drum up $$$ for elections.
no thanks
The only problem with that is that the Republicans LIKE being the minority party in the Senate. They sure don't like weilding the majority club they have now.
RNC Memo Warns GOPers Not To Distance Themselves From BushGee, why would they have to do that?
Yeah, vote democrat and see us cut and run from Iraq, see futile attempts to censure or impeach the president and see your taxes go up.
You can join the Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan party, but you'd fit better over at the DU.
Does seem to be true...but basically just as a message of displeasure.
When the GOP starts acting like Conservative party...
What's the point of being in Iraq when our enemies can simply walk across our borders unmolested?
"W Brand Republicans" = Rockefeller Republicans
Why don't they warn Bush to stop distancing himself from the people who elected him?
Why don't they warn Bush to stop distancing himself from the people who elected him?
They've been doing that since I can remember and before it became the cause de jour. How does that make Iraq not matter?
Uh, yeah, sure. We are usually told this when Bush is trying to sell out conservative positions.
There's no more room at DU. They stopped accepting new members after the Bush and the other Mexican-loving RINOS joined DU.
And how many conservative postitions has Bush sold out?
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