Events will drive election outcome

For the last two weeks, President Bush has pressed an intensive effort to improve the political environment for Republicans by stressing the war on terror and portraying the conflict in Iraq as an integral part.

His goal: to make the November midterm congressional elections a referendum between what the White House sees as the president’s consistent, determined efforts and the alleged weakness of Democratic critics it claims would abandon Iraq and, by implication, the broader war against terrorism.

That contrast has served Bush well in past elections. In 2002, he helped Republicans regain the Senate by portraying Democratic resistance to provisions in a bill creating the Department of Homeland Security as impediments to the war on terror. In 2004, he won re-election in part by denigrating the national security credentials of rival John Kerry.

Recent polls suggest his current campaign is helping the GOP by bringing some reluctant Republicans back to his side. But events between now and Nov. 7 are still likely to have more impact on the election outcome.

The reason for at least the short-term success of the White House focus on terrorism is that it has temporarily overshadowed the continuing violence in Iraq. And polls show the public has more faith in the administration’s handling of terrorism than its handling of Iraq.

As a result, Bush has improved both his personal job approval level and his party’s prospects for the elections, even though the most vehement opposition to his proposals for prosecuting alleged terrorists has come from Republicans with strong national security credentials – not the supposedly weak-kneed Democrats.

But the underlying climate this year remains far less favorable for Republicans than in the past because of the administration’s perceived failure to make progress in Iraq and the widespread view that Bush has no clear plan to extricate the United States from the struggle.

Even some Republican backers of the war concede that what happens in the real world may have more impact over the next seven weeks than what Bush says.

“I doubt the president will move the Iraq war with the voters by what he says,” said Rep. Chris Shays, who is engaged in a close fight to hold his suburban Connecticut seat. Even Shays, who calls the war “a noble mission,” has talked lately of setting a timeline for Iraq to pressure a government he feels is moving too slowly.

Indeed, the recent Republican gains probably stem in part from the way some events in the real world have bolstered the president’s rhetoric.

One is continuing fallout from the mid-August arrest in England of more than 20 alleged terrorists in a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights headed for the United States.

That provided a stark reminder of the continuing terrorism threat.

Another was the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which enabled Bush to invoke images of the single most important event of his administration and the one that most established his presidential leadership.

The impact presumably will wear off from both the 9/11 anniversary and the plot in England. But any new incidents, or even an actual attack, could strengthen the president’s hand by making the terrorism threat seem more immediate.

Meanwhile, no sooner had GOP optimism begun to rise in the wake of the White House offensive than a top commander in Iraq warned that the struggle there is still far from the point where U.S. troops can come home.

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said force levels would have to be kept at more than 140,000 through next spring – and possibly increased. “If we have to call in more forces because it’s our military judgment that we need more forces, we’ll do it,” he said.

Earlier, commanders talked of reducing U.S. troop strength to 100,000 by the end of 2006, and some announcements were widely anticipated this fall. Gen. Abizaid’s comments will help keep Iraq front and center and bolster Democrats pressing for a timetable to begin the U.S. pullout.

They were also a reminder of how quickly the political focus can change. That’s likely to happen several more times before the nation votes on Nov. 7.