NOW the question is whether Democrats can finally kick their addiction to Bush-hatred.
A suddenly humble President Bush yesterday admitted he got a “thumpin’ ” from voters and ditched Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld to show he knows his Iraq policy needs to change.
Bush even did his best to eat his campaign claim that Democrats would put the country at risk, saying: “I’m confident we can overcome the temptation to divide this country between red and blue.”
But for nearly all of Bush’s term – except briefly after 9/11 – the Dems’ central unifying theme has been to hate Bush.
House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, for one, has blasted Bush as “incompetent,” a “liar” and “dangerous” – and then claimed those attacks were gentle compared to what she could have said.
More to the point, Pelosi and some of the Democrats in line to run key committees have vowed to launch a barrage of investigations to embarrass Bush.
“I don’t think voters want subpoenas to fly. People voted for progress on issues like Iraq and energy independence, but most people aren’t hungry for investigations and subpoenas,” said Democratic strategist Josh Isay.
Isay, who worked on the re-election of Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, points to that success in a liberal Democratic state – after antiwar Ned Lamont won Democratic primary – as proof that voters aren’t eager to lurch to the left. True, Lieberman won with the votes of GOPers and independents – but that’s how national elections (like the 2008 presidential race) get won.
As the independent Pew Research Center notes, Democrats won not by bringing out more Bush-hating party loyalists, but by carrying moderates and independents by 57 to 39 percent.
And independents aren’t focused on Bush-hating rage; they just wanted a change in direction. If Democrats see a mandate to go after Bush, they could quickly turn off those voters.
Some Democrats get it – like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who masterminded the Democratic effort to win the Senate by recruiting some moderate candidates, or pro-life Sen.-elect Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who’d never pass muster with the MoveOn hard left.
“[The] election was a cry for change and for the first time it looks like the president is listening. The nomination of a new . . . Defense secretary is a good first step,” Schumer stated yesterday. “We look forward to working with him on an Iraq policy that is both strong and smart.”
Schumer understands that the voters’ slap at Bush gives Democrats a chance to validate their own credentials on defense rather than demanding, as some have, an immediate pullout from Iraq that could be seen as a defeat.
But in the House, Pelosi appears determined to put key committees under Democrats with serious cases of Bush-hatred.
* Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem), soon to head the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, has claimed Vice President Dick Cheney is both nuts and a “son of a bitch.”
* Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), to head the Judiciary Committee, has fulminated on impeaching Bush.
Yet this president is now entering lame-duck status. No future election will be fought on Bush-hatred. It may make lefty bloggers salivate, but it’s a waste of energy.
And any Democrat who thinks Bush-hatred is a winning 2008 strategy might consider a new poll that found Republicans John McCain and Rudy Giuliani both trouncing Democratic frontrunner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In the poll (by the Republican firm McLaughlin and Associates), McCain beat her by a landslide 51 to 35 percent, Giuliani by 51 to 37.
And the less partisan-sounding Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is creeping up fast on Clinton – she leads him by just 29 percent to 22 percent among Democrats in a new poll by independent pollster Scott Rasmussen and 26 to 21 in the McLaughlin poll.
Deborah Orin-Eilbeck is The Post’s Washington Bureau Chief.