RAGGED THOTS

For the past five years, Democrats have been vulnerable on national security issues. Bush and the Republicans projected a clear image of taking the war to the enemy, and never yielding in their drive to defeat radical Islamists. The Democrats, in contrast, projected either an antiwar position or a "yes, but" position. The former looked out of step with the American people, the latter looked like Republican lite. No matter how you sliced it, the Republicans held the upper hand.

The recent rhetorical shift on Iraq, however, has flipped this phenomenon on its head. If Bush acknowledges that "stay the course" is no longer a statisfying status quo, he's acknowledging that the Republican position for the past few years has not worked out too well. If that's the case, then Republicans are forced to offer alternatives with benchmarks or timetables or whatever. The administration has had these plans before, but politically, it looks like the GOP is gravitating towards the Democratic position rather than vice versa.

If this is what the political optics look like, then the Republicans will find themselves in the awkward position of being labeled as "Democrat lite" in their positions on Iraq. And in elections, lite never tastes as good as the real thing.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 4:10 PM

Iraq is not only a potent issue in its own right, but is also a resonant metaphor for doubts about the competence and accountability of the Republican Party.

In the most competitive races, Iraq echoes in varying ways, but almost always for Republicans it is a problem to be navigated and for Democrats a stick to be brandished. In Ohio, it helped put incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine (R) on the efensive. In House races in Pennsylvania and Illinois, it gave three Democratic war veterans and novice politicians an opening.

"We are telling our candidates not to be afraid to talk about it," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "Who would have thought two years ago the Democrats would be affirmatively putting ads on television about Iraq and Republicans would be avoiding it?"

Showing how the tables have turned, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) told interviewers in New Hampshire this week that Republican candidates should steer away from the war.

"The challenge," Frist said, "is to get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue."

# posted by Robert A. George @ 2:30 AM

A major effort to draw Latinos and blacks into the Republican Party, a central element of the GOP plan to build a long-lasting majority, is in danger of collapse amid anger over the immigration debate and claims that Republican leaders have not delivered on promises to direct more money to church-based social services.

President Bush, strategist Karl Rove and other top Republicans have wooed Latino and black leaders, many of them evangelical clergy who lead large congregations, in hopes of peeling away the traditional Democratic base. But now some of the leaders who helped Bush win in 2004 are revisiting their loyalty to the Republican Party and, in some cases, abandoning it.

"There is a fissure, and I doubt it will be closed in this election," said the Rev. Luis Cortes Jr., a Republican who founded the annual National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast that has featured Bush every year since 2002. His Philadelphia-based Esperanza USA boasts a national affiliate network of more than 10,000 churches.

The Latino backlash has grown so intense that one prominent, typically pro-Republican organization, the Latino Coalition, has endorsed Democrats in competitive races this year in Tennessee, Nebraska and New Jersey. The coalition is chaired by Hector Barreto, the former administrator of the Small Business Administration under Bush; its president is a former strategist for the Republican National Committee.

Causing new wrinkles in the White House relationship with evangelicals is the Kuo book, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," in which he describes top White House aides embracing religious conservatives in public while calling them "nuts" behind their backs.

One leading black evangelical who has been a White House guest, Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the Hope Christian Church in Maryland, wrote of a similar incident this month.

Jackson railed against senior administration officials who, he said, had insulted clergy at a meeting this year by dismissing their contribution to Bush's reelection in 2004. He also complained about "the GOP's failure" to react speedily to the House page scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley.

Jackson still supports some Republicans, including Michael Steele, an African American candidate for Senate in Maryland. But in an essay on the website townhall.com, Jackson offered a caution for the party: "Evangelicals must ask themselves if we can work in harmony with a group that takes us for granted and compromises on major moral principles."

# posted by Robert A. George @ 10:35 AM

"I won't even entertain the premise" that the ad is racially offensive, said Danny Diaz, a Republican Party spokesman. He said the allegation was "not fair and not serious and not accurate."

Diaz said the ad was an "independent expenditure" produced by an arm of the Republican National Committee that is legally prohibited from coordinating with Mehlman. Because of this, Diaz said, Mehlman did not see or approve the ad before its release.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 10:30 AM