This epidemic of idiocy in Congress is starting to wear down even die-hard Republicans. Rich Lowry, editor of National Review magazine, recently said that Capitol Hill, where Republicans control both houses of Congress, is being run by "a bunch of bungling, spend-thrift, unreformable, tin-eared, unimaginative, hysterical pols."
Lowry pointed out that as low as Bush's poll numbers are, Congress' are even lower. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, Bush is supported by only 36 percent of Americans, but just 22 percent approve of the job Congress is doing. That's worse than the numbers for Congress at a similar point in 1994, the year voters dumped the Democrats and gave control of both houses to Republicans for the first time in 40 years.
On the blogs, one is seeing more and more conservatives saying that it might be necessary for Republicans to lose the House or Senate this fall to give them a wake-up call and get them back on the right course before the next presidential election. One of those making this argument is Ross Douthat of Atlantic Monthly magazine.
Douthat's main argument is that the presidential election in 2008 will be "tremendously significant" and that a weak Republican Congress is going to be an albatross around the Republican presidential nominee's neck. Says Douthat, "Having (Senate Majority Leader Bill) Frist, (Speaker of the House Dennis) Hastert, (House Majority Leader John) Boehner and company to kick around for another two years is only going to strengthen the Democrats' hand."
Douthat also believes that conservatives are more likely to have a wide-open debate, "informed by a sense of political urgency," about what they stand for if Republicans suffer defeat in 2006. Keeping congressional Republicans in power for another two years "could ruin the right's prospect for a generation," he fears.
Republicans in Congress are convinced that gerrymandering and a big advantage in fund raising will keep them in control. Democrats would have to win virtually every race seen today as winnable to get a majority in either the House or Senate. But there could be more seats in play if large numbers of conservatives stay home on Election Day.
It should be remembered that Republicans won in 1994 not because they got a lot more votes than usual, but because so many dispirited Democrats didn't vote that year.