The Republican message machine is out of control

[EarlG]

It seems that the GOP's new strategy for '06, as reported today by the New York Times, is to whip up their base by, believe it or not, getting louder and louder about impeachment.

Rush Limbaugh is increasingly mentioning the threat of impeachment on his radio show, calling it "a gift." A conservative commentator I highlighted in last week's Top 10, Tony Phyrillas, bookended a recent nutbag rant with "...one thing Democrats will push is the impeachment of George W. Bush ... That's what's at stake if Democrats regain control of Congress in November." The New York Times article says that Paul Weyrich thinks "The threat of impeachment was one of the only factors that could inspire the Republican Party's demoralized base to go to the polls."

One of the only factors.

Forget abortion, forget gay marriage, forget the war on terror - they're out of ammo here, and they're gambling that by getting increasingly noisy about impeachment, their base is going to turn out in record numbers. Well that's fine by me, because I don't think it's going to work.

There's only one trend in Bush's poll numbers at the moment, and that's down. Most of the big polling companies currently have Bush at the lowest levels they've ever polled for him. Pew has him at 33% - Nixon was at 29% when he resigned. In addition, the recent Gallup poll shows that 55% of Americans want a Democratic Congress in 2006 compared to 39% who want to keep it Republican. That's a 16 point gap, which is practically unheard of in Congressional polls.

So if the Republicans think that a good strategy for '06 is to run around shouting, "If the Democrats win, they'll impeach Bush!" then it's just proof that their message machine is finally out of control. Because they're now gambling that the majority of the country won't simply turn around and shrug their shoulders. And if that happens, and the Dems do take back Congress in '06, presumably America is going to be wondering when they can expect that impeachment they were promised.

At this point it seems that most Democrats in Congress do not want to bring up impeachment. Given the fact that most Americans - including a sizeable number of Republicans - now think that Bush is an incompetent, lawbreaking asshat, the wisdom of this strategy is debatable.

But if Republicans want to do the Democrats' job for them by laying the groundwork and prepping the public for the prospect of impeachment... I say let 'em.