The Professor Bainbridge I Know Steps Up!

Now, this is the Professor I know! He makes a compelling case for how the Iraq War, regardless of how well or poorly it's managed, affects the domestic agenda of the President. Read the whole thing here! It's hard to argue this:

What a lot of people have missed, however, is that the post emanates just as much (if not more) from discontent on the domestic side of things than from discontent with Bush's Iraq policy. If I may paraphrase James Carville, "It's the Domestic Implications, [derogatory characterization omitted]."
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So let's assume that some of my more hysterical critics are right and that I've swallowed the MoveOn.org/MSM kool-aid on Iraq. Maybe we really are winning and a full-fledged secular democracy is about to spring forth. I don't believe that, but I'm willing to assume it arguendo. Even making that assumption, there are some hard truths my critics need to grapple with, several of which were nicely captured by Jay of Solo Dialogue:

- Bush's latest national approval rating is 36% (from American Research Group). 36% is about a low as you can go, 36% is Nixon right before he resigned numbers, Jimmy Carter right after he got attacked by the Killer Rabbit. And remember this is a guy who got 51% of the vote less than 10 months ago. He is only getting 77% of Republicans, and without that bedrock support, he would be in the 20's.

- Bush has a 50%+ approval rating in 7 states, and a net positive rating in only 10 (Survey USA). Net negative states include: Kansas (46% approve/50% disapprove); Florida (44/53); Missouri (38/58); Ohio (37/60) and even South Carolina (45/51). When a Republican President can't get net positive ratings in South Carolina, there is a problem. 2006 elections are not that far off, and a state like Ohio looks like a potential disaster for Republicans.

My guess is that a big chunk of this dissatisfaction can be traced to perceptions about the state of things in Iraq.

Why does this matter? Let's start with pork. Steven Taylor wrote:

As I noted the other day, it has been a pork-o-rama in DC of late (and, indeed, I have never been all that fond of the “spend” part of Bush’s fiscal policies), so I share the good Professor’s irritation over the budgets.

Of course, Bush has never shown much interest in controlling spending. He's never vetoed a single spending bill, for example, even when Congress went way over his budget requests. Iraq makes it even less likely that Bush will control spending, however. As support for his Iraq policy dwindles in the polls, along with Bush's personal popularity, he will increasingly be left with only one weapon to buy support in Congress - pork. Unless Bush can turn public attitudes on Iraq around, look for pork spending to increase even faster than usual. He'll either proffer it up voluntarily or, at least, lack the political capital to oppose it.
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The source of my frustration, as Steven Taylor put it, however, is that the Iraq situation (a) makes it harder for Bush to turn around and start moving the domestic conservative agenda and (b) makes it less likely that the Congressional GOP will start leading on that agenda on its own.

All of which is why I don't buy Patrick Carver's claim that the failure to seize the conservative moment and related problems I've identified are "independent from the situation in Iraq." The idea that Iraq isn't hurting (or, at least, going to hurt) the conservative cause is just whistling past the graveyard.

Whether or not Professor Bainbridge made the right argument about what's going wrong in Iraq, only a total idiot would argue that Americans favor the war at this juncture. This may change in the future, but as of right now, a clear majority do not. This fact impacts the administration in a very bad way.

He makes this case hands down. The sagging poll numbers mean less coattails for aspiring Republicans to ride. This leads to the Republicans party at state level making more cautious choices in candidates and platforms for national office. It makes Congress less influenced by the President's leadership. This, in turn, guts any chance that the President can move his domestic agenda forward.

If his numbers don't change, the president loses. And we all know how Americans like losers. If the republican base becomes disgusted with the administration over their failure to act on domestic initiatives important to them, they'll stay home in 2006 and possibly 2008. That could be a disaster for conservatives. What choice would they have should A Republican president and congress fail to enact a conservative agenda?

It's hard to argue the logic of his prediction. Iraq may prove a quagmire for the president more than the troops. That would be a sad blow for Fools, who generally count on more political support from conservatives than from liberals these days. It would be an even sadder blow for the Nation. The US needs conservatives to help restore subsidiarity and a culture of life to the nation's civil virtues. How ironic, then, that the support conservatives gave the president on Iraq may now become the hand that throws them under the bus. Our nation's effort to assault the islamo-fascist in Iraq may cost our society this conservative moment. I shudder to think what price we'll all pay for that!