Republican right abandoning Bush

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What history suggests
As for his overall job performance, history suggests that Bush’s paltry 33 percent spells trouble for Republicans in the fall.

In the past six decades, only one president had a lower job approval rating six months before a midterm election — Richard Nixon in May 1974, the year in which Watergate-scarred Republicans lost 48 seats in the House and four in the Senate.

By November, Nixon was out of a job too, having resigned the presidency in August.

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Nearly half of the public strongly disapproves of Bush, a huge jump from his 5 percent strong disapproval rating in 2002. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Of all Republicans, nearly 30 percent disapprove of the job Bush is doing, including 13 percent who feel strongly about it.

“Hopefully this is a wakeup call for my party to get out of its bunker and hunker mentality,” said Republican strategist Greg Mueller, whose firm specializes in conservative politics.

That punching bag feeling
He urged his party to start criticizing Democratic positions on the Iraq war, immigration and the economy.

“We’ve been like a punching bag,” Mueller said.

Democrats need to gain 15 seats in the House and six in the Senate for control of Congress, no easy task in an era that favors incumbents.

“What we have to do is earn the public approval of our right to govern again,” said Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean.

The Democratic strategy is to nationalize the elections around a throw-the-bums-out theme.

Republicans counter that they will do better than polls suggest when voters are forced on Election Day to choose between candidates in their particular House and Senate races.

“But,” Ayres said, “we better get in gear.”

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