Anti-Bush tide rises on Capitol Hill
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By James Harding in Washington
Published: May 25 2004 19:43 | Last Updated: May 25 2004 19:43
 
Two days before President George W. Bush delivered what was billed as a pivotal speech on Iraq this week, a group of disgruntled conservatives were invited to the White House.

At a small meeting with Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and then a nearly two-hour session with Steve Hadley, her deputy, some of the Republican ideologues who most ardently advocated the military removal of Saddam Hussein harangued the Bush administration over its Iraq policy.

"My best estimate of what it was about was to try to shut up the grumblers among conservatives," said one of the group, which included former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute.

The neo-conservatives are far from Mr Bush's only problem on the right. Indeed, the gathering at the White House on Saturday morning was a small-scale prequel to the president's speech on Monday night and the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign's urgent effort to reassure the growing ranks of disaffected Republicans.

"Republicans fall into two categories at this time: grumbling and despondent," says one former high-ranking administration official. "People are very demoralised. This is the prime problem that the president is seeking to address . . . to show that there is a method to the madness."

Mr Bush's message of perseverance in Iraq in a speech peppered with names, dates and numbers on Monday night was seen by many as an attempt to assuage anxious Republicans. It was delivered at the Army War College in the Republican heart of Pennsylvania, a swing state visited by Mr Bush 28 times since he took office.

For the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib, the rising death toll and the sense of drift have not only soured public sentiment towards the Iraq war, they have sapped Mr Bush's support on Capitol Hill, among Republican voters and within the conservative "commentariat".

Senators such as Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican, have personalised the administration's failings in Iraq. Mr Hagel complained that Mr Bush has sealed himself off from outside advice: "To essentially hold himself hostage to two or three key advisers and never reach beyond that is very dangerous for a president."

Suddenly, Democrats in Congress are even beginning to dream out loud of recapturing the Republican-held House, believing that a wave of anti-Iraq, anti-Bush sentiment could deliver them the extra 12 seats they need.

The polls show that as Mr Bush's approval ratings for his handling of Iraq have plummeted, Republicans previously rock-solid in their support for Mr Bush's leadership in Iraq and the war on terrorism are having misgivings: only 75 per cent of Republicans supported Mr Bush's handling of Iraq, down 8 per cent over the past month, according to Tuesday's Washington Post-ABC News Poll. The problems in Iraq are even contaminating Mr Bush's approval ratings on the economy.

"There is not a base problem," said Matthew Dowd, Mr Bush's campaign pollster and senior adviser. He pointed out that the most recent Gallup polls show Republican support for Mr Bush at 89 per cent - a higher level of support from his party than Ronald Reagan had in 1984 or Bill Clinton in 1996.

Whatever the conservative commentators complaints are with the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, one of those at the White House gathering points out that none of them would even contemplate voting for Mr Kerry. The same, though, cannot be said for Republicans across the country.

James Carville, the fast-talking Louisiana Democrat who worked for Bill Clinton and has since made a reputation as a partisan pollster and television pundit, says that when he speaks to Republican audiences he asks them whether they have come across many people in bars or supermarkets recently who say: "I voted for Al Gore in 2000, but, you know, I'm so impressed with that George Bush, I think I'm going to vote for him this time."

It is a doubly vicious taunt, as it reminds Republicans not only of the strength of anti-Bush feeling that will propel Democrats to the polls in November but, also, it hints at the increasing number of George W. Bush voters in 2000 who are having second thoughts in 2004.