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While various people in our party deserve credit for last night, what really propelled our victory was, to use the title of that Lemony Snicket movie - "A Series of Unfortunate Events." The GOP had several opportunities to come back, but new events just popped up.
After Bush won a bare majority, he intended to spend political capital on privatizing Social Security. In doing this, he saw his job approval rating sink from a post-election high of the mid 50's, back into the upper 40's. He tried several times to pursue privatization, but the news cycle and Republican distraction prevented him from doing so. IN March and April of 2005, it was Terri Schiavo, the Pope's funeral, and the distraction of the VRWC toward "Justice Sunday" and implementing the Nuclear Option. THe social conservatives wanted to take away the filibuster more than they did in wanting to privatize Social Security.
By the summer, Bush's job approval had been hit by Social Security and Schiavo, as he was down to the lower-mid 40's. The Republicans still thought that their prospects for 2006 would look good, in the form of candidates like Jeanine Pirro in New York, Katherine Harris in Florida, and "rising star" Mark Kennedy in Minnesota. However "Katrine changed everything." Bush's incompetence sent his job approval into the '30s for the first time, and wiped away his last serious attempt at privatizing Social Security. As a result, we won the 2005 elections handily, as we won Governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, and defeated Republicans in local races such as the Dover, PA school-board race in order to stop Intelligent Design.
After the 2005 election, Bush's job approval went back up in the mid-40's, and things started looking a little better for him. From roughly December until March, it looked like he was coming back, as he managed to get Alito confirmed. Hell in February, Katherine Harris was within 9% of Bill Nelson is a Rasmussen poll! This changed in late February and early March with the announcement of the Dubai Ports Deal, something that I honestly didn't think would get covered beyond Lou Dobbs. This erased roughly four months of gains, and sent his job approval back into the '30s. NOt only were liberals and moderates pissed off at him, but so were conservatives. Illegal immigration also took a toll on his job approval, as paleo conservatives and law and order types were upset at the fact that Bush and the cheap labor conservatives were running the show.
The low point of Bush's spring slide was at the White House Correspondents Dinner when Stephen Colbert derided Bush through satire and declared that Bush's remaining supporters were "backwash." By this time, Bush was in the low '30s, with Harris polling him at 29%!
Unfortunately, Bush began to come back, as a few speeches on illegal immigration to save face, and Zarqawi's killing helped left him back into the upper '30 to low 40's, where he stayed for several months. It also looked as though the terror card would work again, as bullshit plots in Miami and New York were uncovered. The British airlines plot was also hyped, as several of the suspects were let go. By August, his job approval stayed at the same range, and the Republicans were only on the offensive for about two days, when Lamont beat Lieberman in the primary (I "on the offensive," I mean in the news-cycle.)
Unfortunately, during September, it looked as though Bush would "finally" come back and that 2006 would look more like 2004. Bush got a 9/11 bounce, and polled in the mid-upper 40's briefly (Chris Matthews even predicted that he would be back up at 50% by Election Day!) Lower oil prices also assisted, and some have speculated that price manipulation is the reason. September was a campaign of "terra and taxes" but that all changed when Mark Foley came onto the scene.
Whatever lingering hopes voters had in trusting the GOP in the face of corruption, sex was what finally turned them off. September's gains were erased, as Bush was back in the mid-upper 30's. The Republicans have never really come back from Foley, although in the last week, Kerry's botched joke gave them some hope...but Haggard nullified his adverse affects on our chances. The Saddam verdict, a last-ditch November Surprise, also failed, because voters, while still willing to buy some of what Bush is selling on the anniversary of 9/11, don't believe that convicting Saddam makes a difference, as he has been irrelevant in Iraq since his capture.
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