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Don't be so quick to count out the Republicans

By DAVID BRODER Washington Post Writers Group
Published March 16, 2007

WASHINGTON - Months before the first votes are cast in the campaign of 2008, some in the media are conducting last rites for the Republicans. The rush to bury the GOP is as hasty as it is premature.

The headline atop Page 1 of Tuesday's New York Times read, "GOP Voters Voice Anxieties On Party's Fate." It sounded like the death knell for the party that has held the White House for 26 of the past 38 years. But the evidence was thin.

A New York Times/CBS News poll that included 698 self-identified Republicans found that 40 percent of them thought the Democrats were likely to win the presidency in 2008. That finding is hardly a surprise. A great many Democrats I know still have trouble admitting that their candidates lost to George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

The New York Times, which is not normally solicitous of Republicans' feelings, also reported widespread concern among those it interviewed "that their party had drifted from the principles of Ronald Reagan."

The fine print told a different story. Support for Bush and his policies remains high among Republicans. His job rating among GOP voters is 75 percent.

That does not suggest a party wracked by anxiety or guilt, but the newspaper is taking no chances. Its survey finds that Republicans are less satisfied with their current field of presidential candidates than Democrats are with theirs - and that the three presumed Republican front-runners have larger numbers of undecided voters among their fellow partisans than do the three leading Democrats.

Three out of four Republicans haven't heard enough about Mitt Romney to venture an opinion or are undecided on the former Massachusetts governor's qualifications. Half say the same thing about John McCain. Only three of five can rate Rudolph Giuliani.

But the New York Times finds no doubt about the qualities Republicans want in a candidate - someone who will restrict abortions, oppose same-sex marriage and support tax cuts. There are, by my count, at least nine such candidates.

Given the rich variety of choices available, you might ask, what's the problem?

I would say that the problem seems to lie in the eyes of those political observers who are impatient to judge an election that is many months, not weeks, away. Of course, Republican partisans have every reason to be uneasy today. Their party has lost control of Congress. The president's ratings are in the cellar; the Iraq war continues with mounting casualties; and investigations are uncovering fresh scandals.

You would have to be a clueless Republican not to be worried.

[Last modified March 16, 2007, 01:04:02]