Republicans find hope in voters losing faith in Democrats

The day had been full of ominous warnings. Polls showed the Republicans on the losing side of almost every issue and the 2008 presidential race -- and now they're forced to defend a controversial veto of a popular children's health bill.

But Tom Cole, the 58-year-old Oklahoma representative who this year took on the responsibility for running the GOP's congressional campaign, is remarkably sanguine -- considering.

He had been reading about the Washington Post/ABC News poll showing that Hillary Rodham Clinton had established a commanding lead for the Democratic presidential nomination and was beating Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front-runner, by 51 percent to 43 percent in a hypothetical matchup. The same poll showed President Bush's approval rating at 33 percent, equaling his historic low, and congressional Republicans even lower, at 29 percent, the lowest ever recorded for them.

So how could he be reasonably satisfied with his party's prospects? The answer: The Democrats are also looking like dogs.

The approval score for their party in Congress has sunk to 38 percent -- down 10 points since a similar poll taken just before the 2006 election that gave the Democrats their first congressional majority since 1994. Congress as a whole rated only 29 percent approval. The reason: People think it has been spinning its wheels. By 82 percent to 16 percent, those polled said it has accomplished little or nothing this year. Half blame Bush and the Republicans; a quarter, the Democrats; and another fifth, both parties.

Cole, who admits Republicans hurt themselves in 2006 with scandals and out-of-control spending, said the poll confirms for him a comment he heard this week from a Republican colleague. Speaking of the Democrats, he said, "My God, they're dragging themselves down to our level."

It all adds up, Cole said, to a political environment reminiscent of 1992 -- a tough year for incumbents of both parties who suddenly saw their margins shrink or disappear. "The American people are rising up in disgust," Cole said, "and incumbents will pay. It's not anti-Republican anymore. It's anti-Washington."

But the crucial question at the moment, politically, is Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill -- the $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The Post poll found 72 percent approval for this measure, which would add 4 million children to the ranks of the insured. Cole claims that Republicans will be protected by asserting that they favor the concept and are prepared to support a less expensive compromise. I think that is a tough sell politically. But I'm more persuaded by his argument that Republicans have little to fear from a Hillary Clinton candidacy. "That is no landslide election," he said. "The Republican nominee, whoever he is, wins at least 43-44-45 percent against her, and that gives us a base for congressional races.

"She is not going to carry Georgia or Kansas or Texas, and we have good candidates running against shaky Democrats in every one of those states. There are Democrats sitting in 61 districts that Bush carried; 47 that he carried twice. We are on the offensive in those districts," he said.

That may seem implausible, but Cole has history on his side. In 1992, as he notes, incumbents were hammered, 24 of them losing in November, another 17 failing in their primaries. The Republicans achieved a net gain of 10 House seats that year, a feather in the cap of the then-executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Tom Cole. Now Cole faces a familiar challenge. In 1992, the Democrats nominated Bill Clinton for president -- and he won. But his party lost House seats. Cole is out to make history repeat itself.

© 2007, Washington Post Writers Group