Bush-Hating Republicans?

Yesterday, Andrew linked to this video of David Brooks telling Chris Matthews that many Republicans hate George W. Bush:

Andrew refers to this as "life outside the cocoon" but I think it may be the reverse. Certainly, it seems to me that a healthy number of professional conservatives in Washington and New York are kind of sick of Bush and, if nothing else, blame him for damaging the Republican Party and the conservative brand. But the fact remains that Bush's approval ratings are in the low twenties. If we assume (which I think is safe) that essentially all of that support is coming from Republicans, it means that the overwhelming majority of Republicans (though almost nobody else) thinks Bush is doing a good job as president.

That's the problem facing the Republican primary candidates. It's obvious that the best path to the White House for any of these guys would be to run a Sarkozy-style strategy that emphasizes the need for change even while making the case for partisan continuity. But Republican primary voters don't think we need to change course on anything but immigration.

Comments

But the fact remains that Bush's approval ratings are in the low twenties.

That "fact" is false. Low thirties, not low twenties.

Posted by Al | August 16, 2007 11:44 AM

> ut the fact remains that Bush's approval ratings
> are in the low twenties. If we assume (which I
> think is safe) that essentially all of that
> support is coming from Republicans, it means that
> the overwhelming majority of Republicans (though
> almost nobody else) thinks Bush is doing a good
> job as president.

For any estimate of US eligible voters who are Republican between 35% and 60%, a composite approval rating of 20% is not an "overwhelming majority of all Republicans".

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | August 16, 2007 11:45 AM

It's obvious that the best path to the White House for any of these guys would be to run a Sarkozy-style strategy that emphasizes the need for change even while making the case for partisan continuity.

Maybe I'm just over-correcting for the pro-"neo-liberal consensus" bias of the media here in the ol' U.S.of.A., which naturally seemed to be very pro-Sarkozy, but (and if anyone here's of the French persuasion, you can correct me if I'm wrong) it seemed to me that Sarkozy didn't so much win the election based on his ideas but by proving that he wasn't the insane madman people thought he was ...

Essentially it was a very American style election. Everybody thought that Sarkozy was a right wing joker. Everyone thought that Royale would be too effete (sound like American politics yet?). So Royale, trying not to be effete, ended up coming off as completely unhinged. Meanwhile Sarkozy needed only to look calm, and he was able to totally overturn the "Sarkozy's a right wing nut" talking point by, well, not coming off as a nut.

If Royale didn't come off as the French John Kerry (ok ... I know I'm baiting ... or is it bating ... GOP partisans here ;) ) and, at the same time, as the French version of Howard Dean as portrayed in the media post-screem (note ... I am not saying Howard Dean is actually like this, I'm just saying that Royale came off exactly how the media tried to make it seem that Dean was): Sarkozy never would have been able to seem calm by comparison and never would have won, would he?

So I'm not sure what a Sarkozy style campaign would be in 2008 ... if anything, Bush in 2004 ran a Sarkozy style campaign against Kerry and the Dems and that campaign is, well, so 2004.

Posted by DAS | August 16, 2007 11:52 AM

Yes, a clarification on the numbers might be in order here. I'm all for hearing that "low twenties" constitutes an "overwhelming majority" of republicans, because that would be quite reassuring for the despiser of republicans in me. However, it just sounds too good to be true.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 16, 2007 11:53 AM

it means that the overwhelming majority of Republicans (though almost nobody else) thinks Bush is doing a good job as president.

Haven't we seen polling to exactly that effect? (I'd love to see the geographic splits on that.)

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 16, 2007 11:54 AM

Take, e.g., the latest Gallup poll. Bush's approval is 72% among Republicans, 28% among Independents, and 7% among Democrats.

Posted by Al | August 16, 2007 11:58 AM

This is not at all obvious, unless you make the dubious assumption that nobody but a Republican would approve of Bush. After all, since most people are not Republicans, even a minimal approval rate among non-Republicans, say 5%, would compensate for a third or more of Republicans hating Bush's guts.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | August 16, 2007 12:02 PM

That's the problem facing the Republican primary candidates. It's obvious that the best path to the White House for any of these guys would be to run a Sarkozy-style strategy that emphasizes the need for change even while making the case for partisan continuity. But Republican primary voters don't think we need to change course on anything but immigration.

But that *is* the cocoon - the Republicans have done a fantastic job over the years of building a dedicated message machine and loyal media institutions for speaking to their base, but that's had the unintended consequences of putting their base completely out of touch with the rest of the country. Hard luck for the candidate who has to win the support of the base in the primary and moderates in the general election.

Posted by Gabriel | August 16, 2007 12:02 PM

I don't get it. Bush has done more to expand the government and spending than I could have imagined. He's expanded the powers of the executive more than any other president in history. How can he appeal to conservatives? He hasn't cut down on government spending, he signed (with the prescription drug bill) the largest non-defense federal program ever, I believe, he hasn't really delivered on any of his major conservative policy promises... besides remaking the Supreme Court I can't think of anything he's done that appeals to conservatives. What's the deal?

Posted by Freddie | August 16, 2007 12:04 PM

There are millions of nominal conservatives who think that being a conservative is fully constituted by thinking it's clever to use the term "liberal" as if it were an epithet, and for whom the rhetoric of "small government" is really about making sure their taxes go to blowing up foreigners, an inherently patriotic activity, rather than giving those evil poor single mothers and their children a "free ride" in the form of welfare and health benefits.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 16, 2007 12:11 PM

There may be a distinction in many Republican minds between "do I approve of Bush" and "what will I say to a representative of the left-wing media who calls me on the phone to ask if I approve of Bush." I'd bet his real number doesn't break the teens.

(Of course, when doing any kind of historical comparison, you have to use what the poll reports -- I'm sure the same issue arises with Truman's or LBJ's low numbers.)

Posted by alkali | August 16, 2007 12:14 PM

The GOP is a top-down party. If the party leadership hates Bush, the fact that all the rubes in the base still like him is less significant. If they choose, the few who run the party can make him an unperson and the cadres will fall in line. (Thus the "Bush wasn't a REAL conservative" meme that's been on the rise.)

As we roll into the final lap of the Bush presidency, he'll do one more bit of duty for the oligarchs who appointed him: he'll be the fall guy for all the disasters his administration created by doing what the oligarchs wanted. The war, the deficit, the scandals, and the tanking economy will all be on Bush personally, so they can pretend whoever the next GOP candidate is isn't to blame.

Posted by jimBOB | August 16, 2007 12:15 PM

That "fact" is false. Low thirties, not low twenties.

Rather like a hospital upgrading the condition of an accident victim from 'dead' to 'critical'.

The used-to-be-deceased still isn't going out dancing any time soon.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | August 16, 2007 12:15 PM

There are millions of nominal conservatives who think that being a conservative is fully constituted by thinking it's clever to use the term "liberal" as if it were an epithet

Movement conservatism -- sit back down, Edmund Burke's Ghost -- has approximately the same intellectual content as being a Milwaukee Brewers fan...

Posted by Davis X. Machina | August 16, 2007 12:18 PM

Rather like a hospital upgrading the condition of an accident victim from 'dead' to 'critical'.

Could be. Still, the Reality Based Community should be a bit more... reality based, dontcha think?

Posted by Al | August 16, 2007 12:20 PM

Not for nothing, but can't we just acknowledge that Brooks is not a journalist but a Republican shill oriented to a pretty specific niche of the market? We should at least suspect that when he says "Republicans hate Bush" it's because Independents and Blue State Republicans need to be reassured that the Republican base is other than it is. Blue-trending former Bush voters need to hear that representatives of the Republican Establishment--like politicians and people like himself--share their concerns. None of which makes it true.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 16, 2007 12:26 PM

I would be absolutely delighted to have a friend or loved one upgraded from "dead" to "critical", and I think that sentiment is almost universal. That's more a difference of kind than degree; Barring cryonics, and the passage of a lot of time, "dead" doesn't get better. Critical often does.

I think Alkali has a good deal of it: Even a conservative who hates Bush's guts is going to think twice about giving Democrats the satisfaction of saying so to a polster. Bush's real popularity among Republicans is exagerated by these polls.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | August 16, 2007 12:26 PM

> Bush has done more to expand the government and
> spending than I could have imagined. He's expanded
> the powers of the executive more than any other
> president in history. How can he appeal to
> conservatives?

He transferred all the money into their pockets, and he put the middle and lower classes back on the path to serfdom. Your question is what exactly? Oh, I see - you think that there have been any such things as "traditional Republicans" and "conservative Republicans" at any time since 1962 or so. Hint: there have not.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | August 16, 2007 12:33 PM

Brooks may well be right. Many Republicans approving of Bush in response to a polling question may well be doing so simply to avoid aiding the terrorist enemies.

Posted by Archit Shah | August 16, 2007 1:02 PM

We'll start hearing the "mistakes were made" speeches AFTER the Republican candidate has sewed up the nomination. Probably at the Convention during the acceptance speech. Maybe two days later.

Voters have amnesia. On election day, they only remember if they've been screwed in the past 3 months. Watch Helicopter Bernanke open up the discount window in September and cry
"Laissez Le Bon Temps Rollez!" As they say in New Orleans.

Or should I say, "Said"?

Posted by Don Williams | August 16, 2007 1:07 PM

"I don't get it. Bush has done more to expand the government and spending than I could have imagined. He's expanded the powers of the executive more than any other president in history. How can he appeal to conservatives? He hasn't cut down on government spending, he signed (with the prescription drug bill) the largest non-defense federal program ever, I believe, he hasn't really delivered on any of his major conservative policy promises... besides remaking the Supreme Court I can't think of anything he's done that appeals to conservatives. What's the deal?"

Since WWII, only two Republican administrations, Eisenhower and Bush I, could really be put into the Burkean (sp?) conservative small government mold. Even then, major Eisenhower accomplishments like the national highway system weren't exactly small government. Nixon said, "we're all Keynesians now." Reagan, depending on which metric you use, actually expanded the size of the US government and didn't exactly control spending, which is why Bush I had to raise taxes. Bush II: obvious how they've been rather statist. The middle class Republican base is about guns, Jesus, war and not giving money to blacks, the latter of which they pretend is small government. Wall Street likes lower taxes, is MIA on social issues and is conflicted over foreign policy, with many in the Republican Party preferring violence to tact. Fear and hatred of the Other, be it liberals, Muslims, Jews, African-Americans, Latinos, "loose" women, gays and lesbians, etc. has been the driving force behind the GOP ever since the big government South went Republican after African-Americans started getting their rights protected.

Posted by Reality Man | August 16, 2007 1:17 PM

Still, the Reality Based Community should be a bit more... reality based, dontcha think?

Physician, heal thyself.

We should at least suspect that when he says "Republicans hate Bush" it's because Independents and Blue State Republicans need to be reassured that the Republican base is other than it is.

Right. After all, none of these so-called Bush haters actually vote against his wishes. It's that weird kind of hate where you give the hated one everything he asks for.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | August 16, 2007 1:41 PM

Let's do 3 polls of Republicans on Bush's performance, separated by two weeks each time. The same Republicans each time. The first one, the questioner has a Middle Eastern accent. The second one, a thick Southern drawl. The third, as nondescript as possible, or alternatively, a New York accent.

Okay, I realize this would meet the criteria of a valid poll, but it might be fun anyway.

Posted by ryan | August 16, 2007 1:42 PM

I agree with Matthew. Brooks bases his comments on what he heard from New Hampshire Republicans, who, like Brooks, are social liberals and fiscal conservatives, and who basically despise Bush as a redneck. Most of all, they hate him for the war in Iraq--unlike Brooks, who has to maintain his neocon allegiance no matter what. If Brooks ever makes it to South Carolina, which is definitely NOT his territory, he'll hear a different tune.

Posted by Alan Vanneman | August 16, 2007 1:44 PM

Immigration isn't the only issue most Republicans disagree with Bush on. The other is entitlements. Many were against Bush's expansion of Medicare into drug coverage*, and, while most of us appreciated him trying to address Social Security, he made a hash of it. The private accounts were a bridge too far; a smarter approach would have combined Robert Pozen's progressive indexing of benefits to control costs, with a transition to a trust fund backed with assets the U.S. Government could draw upon in the future (instead of Treasury bonds which are liabilities the government has to pay back).

*I was initially against Medicare Part D, but in hindsight, I think this may have been a necessary price to keep populist Dems from slapping price controls on drugs and killing the golden goose of pharmaceutical industry innovation.

Posted by Fred | August 16, 2007 1:50 PM

I can't say I'm surprised at the current republican cannibalism; remember, GWB sucker-punched an McCain over miscegenation in the 2000 PRIMARIES. I am surprised that it's started so early, and I'm also a bit weirded out that it seems disconnected from day-to-day White House operations (after all, Bill Clinton was forced to testify by the courts, and later spent days/weeks/whatever in impeachment proceedings when he was supposed to, you know, BE PRESIDENT FOR THE COUNTRY). You would think that Bush would be constantly on the defensive against everything except hamsters. Instead he crams evil empire-type stuff down congress' throats and goes on vacation. Ah well. You know, sometime in 2008, a republican will start campaigning on the slogan of restoring order & dignity to the white house, although if tehre was any justice, Hillary would own that line lock stock and barrel.

Posted by jonathan | August 16, 2007 1:52 PM

Just to note, Bush's approval ratings being in the low 30s is actually better for Matt's point - Republicans are, what, 37% of the population? The numbers Al provided also clearly supported Matt's case - Republicans overwhelmingly support Bush, Independents and Democrats overwhelmingly don't.

As to "Burkean" conservatism, I see nothing about Burkeanism which implies a commitment to small government. Burkeanism is all about slow, gradual change and preserving the traditional order. Building highways is hardly something that Burke would have disapproved of.

Posted by John | August 16, 2007 2:17 PM

Another point: Even those Republicans who continue like Bush personally realize that the Texas drawl act may not be the most effective path to enacting policies we prefer; I think that helps explain the popularity of Northeastern Republican candidates Giuliani and Romney -- both have successfully dealt with Dem legislatures.

Posted by Fred | August 16, 2007 2:40 PM

Even a conservative who hates Bush's guts is going to think twice about giving Democrats the satisfaction of saying so to a polster. Bush's real popularity among Republicans is exagerated by these polls.

got any data to back that up?

Posted by cleek | August 16, 2007 2:52 PM

"Another point: Even those Republicans who continue like Bush personally realize that the Texas drawl act may not be the most effective path to enacting policies we prefer; I think that helps explain the popularity of Northeastern Republican candidates Giuliani and Romney -- both have successfully dealt with Dem legislatures.

Posted by Fred | August 16, 2007 2:40 PM "

How many primary voters know that? Primary voters actually poll rather low in knowing, for instance, about Giuliani's stances on abortion and gay marriage, especially in the Republican's Southern stronghold. Also, Bush was as much as New England Republican who was born in Connecticut and spent at least 10 years being educated in New England pretending to be a Texan with a phony pseudo-Texan accent as an actual Texan.

Posted by Reality Man | August 16, 2007 3:14 PM

Outside of Andrew Sullivan and George Will, I don't think there are more than 10 right-leaning people who know who Edmund Burke is. Seriously.

Now, as far as how many prefer Reflections on the French Revolution to Ann Coulter's Treason - well, i think we are back to Sullivan and Will.

Posted by Neal Murray | August 16, 2007 3:24 PM

Neal, that's a good point about Edmund Burke.

And many people who have heard his name have no idea he's (supposedly) a conservative hero. For example, there's a Burke County, Georgia, its website says, "The county was named for Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament who championed the rights of the American colonies".

Posted by beowulf | August 16, 2007 4:38 PM

We should at least suspect that when he says "Republicans hate Bush" it's because Independents and Blue State Republicans need to be reassured that the Republican base is other than it is.

In late 2003 I called myself a Republican. By the spring of 2004 I was calling myself an independent. I'd be interested in knowing how much of Bush's "support" among Republicans is the result of anti-Bush Republicans leaving the party.

In other words, what is Bush's support, not among current Republicans, but among people who identified as Republicans in, say, mid-2002? That's neither here nor there when in comes to the depth of the shit in which the GOP finds itself, but it would be an interesting gauge of how many GOP-inclined Americans have been driven away from the party by this administration.

I'm not disagreeing with the idea that some Republicans don't acknowledge the nature of the GOP base, but it's worth noting that one reason "the base" is now so extreme is that the party's extreme leadership has driven away moderates who used to be part of "the base."

Posted by JB | August 16, 2007 4:52 PM

RE "Outside of Andrew Sullivan and George Will, I don't think there are more than 10 right-leaning people who know who Edmund Burke is. Seriously."
--------
You forgot Pat Buchanan and his group.

And I would throw out George Will. Will is more like the hypocritical, bootlicking medieval bishop who knows where his bread is buttered. He is always ready to point out the moral failings of the poor and to quote Scripture condemming them -- while studiously averting his eyes from the far worse failings of the rich. Thorstein Veblen had Will's number decades ago.

Posted by Don Williams | August 16, 2007 6:08 PM

I take your point about Pat Buchanan; but you missed mine about George Will.

I wasn't saying anything positive or negative about him, nor was I even endorsing the philosophy of Edmund Burke. Merely that Will takes his political inspiration from Burke, as he has said in interviews.

My main point, though, was that the "Burkean Conservatives" have as much hold on the Conservative movement - namely, none - as the Log Cabin Republicans.

Posted by Neal Murray | August 16, 2007 7:47 PM

In other words, what is Bush's support, not among current Republicans, but among people who identified as Republicans in, say, mid-2002? That's neither here nor there when in comes to the depth of the shit in which the GOP finds itself, but it would be an interesting gauge of how many GOP-inclined Americans have been driven away from the party by this administration.

If I recall correctly, in 2004, 37% of voters called themselves Republicans, which is the highest percentage ever and the only time that the percentage of Republicans equaled the percentage of Democrats among the electorate. Needless to say, the percentage of Republicans is lower now than it was in 2004.

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