By Michael Barone
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
The two political parties are in disarray. The Democrats
are disheartened. The Republicans are disunited.
Start with (because they're first in alphabetical order)
the Democrats. The Barack Obama they were so enthusiastic about in 2008 has
been disappointing many of them lately.
Not many happy Obama voters envisioned last November that
his presidency would be faced with multiple scandals six months later.
During the campaign, most of the media provided voters
with little information about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and
three other Americans in Benghazi.
But now it's apparent to anyone paying attention that
Obama and Hillary Clinton repeatedly misled Americans about the nature of the
attack and their response.
Strong partisans try to ignore that kind of information
about their leader. But it's getting harder to do so.
It's even harder to ignore the Justice Department's
actions against The Associated Press and Fox News's James Rosen. (Disclosure:
I'm a Fox News contributor.)
As for the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of
conservative groups, prominent Democratic officeholders, including Obama, have
appropriately condemned it. Polls suggest that most Democratic voters take that
view, as well.
I have seen no evidence yet that anyone in the White
House ordered the targeting. But it does seem peculiar that IRS Commissioner
Douglas Shulman and his chief of staff attended hundreds of meetings in the
White House complex.
And then there's the news that the National Security
Agency has been data mining and intercepting communications between suspected
terrorists abroad and persons in the United States.
The latter used to be called "domestic
wiretapping" during the Bush administration. Barack Obama denounced it
vigorously.
But as president he's kept it up and now, perfunctorily,
defends it. History shows that there is more continuity to U.S. foreign and
defense policy than partisan rhetoric suggests. But Democratic voters were led
to expect discontinuity -- "hope and change." Many are surely
disheartened by this and by his decision to provide some arms to Syrian rebels.
Democrats' disillusion comes on top of some
disenchantment during Obama's first term. Sluggish economy growth and the
unpopularity of Obamacare contributed to that.
It's been little noticed, but Obama got 3.6 million fewer
votes in 2012 than he did in 2008. In contrast, George W. Bush was re-elected
with 11.6 million more votes than he won four years before.
Obama's job approval now is just about identical to
Bush's at this point in his second term. It may not fall as far as Bush's did.
But the numbers and the news don't suggest that Democrats will flock
enthusiastically to the polls in 2014 and 2016.
At the same time, it's not apparent that Republican
voters are taking heart from these developments. Their party seems divided even
more than is usual for a party that's been out of the White House for five
years.
Republicans are split on immigration, with Sen. Marco
Rubio of Florida rallying the Senate Gang of Eight bill and other Republicans
denouncing it as amnesty. They're divided, as we saw in the House last week, on
the farm/food stamps bill.
They're divided especially on foreign policy. Sen. John
McCain of Arizona and others labeled as neoconservatives have long called for
military aid -- perhaps a no-fly zone -- for the Syrian rebels. They've
defended the administration's surveillance programs.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has been shrewdly seeking
attention, takes an opposite view. He's against involvement in the Middle East
and decries the use of drones and data mining.
Republicans had a weak field of presidential candidates
in 2012, and the strongest of them, Mitt Romney, won only 1 million more votes
than McCain had in 2008.
The party seems likely to have a much stronger field in
2016 -- and one with a wide range of positions and platforms.
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has put
forward fiscal plans that have been backed by almost all House Republicans. But
there could still be wide disagreement on economic issues in the presidential
primaries.
There could be disagreement on health care, as well. No
one is sure how the rollout of Obamacare will go. It could be a disaster, or it
could produce just minor "glitches and bumps," in the president's
words.
Republican politicians are united in opposing Obamacare.
They are, unsurprisingly, not united on how to respond to a rollout that hasn't
happened yet.
Often one of the two major parties is in disarray. Today,
unusually, both of them are.
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