Lancet today published a study (pdf) that concludes that there have been 654,965 "excess deaths" in Iraq since the US invasion in March 2003. At a White House press conference, President Bush pooh-poohed the report. He said,
"I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does General Casey and neither do Iraqi officials. I do -- I do know that a lot of innocent people have died, and that troubles me. And it grieves me. And I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence. I am, you know, amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to -- you know, that there's a level of violence that they tolerate."
The Iraqis are tolerating this sectarian violence, which is killing thousands of Iraqis a month? Where does Bush get this stuff? Is he trying to look out of touch with reality for strategic reasons? In any event, at this press conference, Bush wouldn't even stand by the figure of 30,000 civilian deaths he cited last December. Here's a suggestion: if Bush is going to dismiss the Lancet study, he should order the Pentagon to keep track of civilian deaths (which it doesn't) and to conduct its own investigation of civilian casualties in Iraq. Then he might have some standing in any debate over the Lancet figures. Until then, he can...well, tolerate other sources of information.
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HAPPY DAYS?: Here's my latest "Loyal Opposition" column at www.TomPaine.com. And please remember to check out that site regularly....
Democrats Haven't Won Yet
David Corn
October 11, 2006
David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the co-author along with Michael Isikoff of HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. Read his blog at DavidCorn.com.
Nancy Pelosi measuring the curtains in the Speaker’s office. Ranking Democrats on House committees rushing out to buy gavels. Democratic staffers drafting subpoenas.
Those are the images running through Democrats’ minds as they read the polls from recent days. Public approval of Congress has fallen to the lowest point in over 10 years: 32 percent in a Washington Post/ABC News poll. That poll noted that registered voters favor Democratic congressional candidates over Republicans 54 to 41 percent. A USA Today/Gallup poll gave the Dems an even wider margin: 59 to 36 percent. On every key issue, the polls show Democrats have an edge over Republicans. Asked which party can be trusted to handle terrorism—the Bush administration’s signature issue—the Democrats were ahead in the Post/ABC poll by 6 points. (This comes after the White House spent weeks in September trying to depict the Democrats as wimps on terrorism.) And when a New York Times/CBS News poll asked which party comes "closer to sharing your moral values," the Ds beat the Rs 47 to 38 percent.
George W. Bush’s approval rating has dropped in all the surveys. The Times/CBS poll placed him as low as 34 percent. In the Post poll, 63 percent said his war in Iraq had not been worth fighting—a new record. And the numbers related to the Mark Foley scandal offer no good news either. In the Times/CBS poll, 79 percent said House Republican leaders cared more about their own political standing than the safety of congressional pages. Almost half said House Speaker Dennis Hastert should resign. A CNN poll found that 79 percent believed Republican top-dogs in Congress handled the Foley matter "inappropriately." Slightly more than half said Republican leaders were involved in a "deliberate cover-up."
Political handicapping has followed the numbers. Veteran House-watcher Charlie Cook has upped the number of toss-up seats from 18 to 25. A few of the new at-risk seats are directly linked to the Foley scandal. For instance, Rep. Tom Reynolds, who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee and who has been implicated in the Foley affair, has suffered a free-fall in the polls for his race in upstate New York. And Foley’s seat is probably lost to the GOP. (To vote for Foley’s Republican replacement, a resident of that Florida district will have to pull the lever next to Foley’s name, which could not be removed from the ballot.)
This is more than enough to make a Democrat giddy. Still, Pelosi ought not to order those new curtains yet.
The national political weather is clearly awful for Republicans. The unending war, Hurricane Katrina, Foley—all that trumps falling gas prices and a rising Dow. A storm is heading toward Congress on Election Day. And were the United States a European-style democracy—where voters tend to pick party representatives rather than individual candidates—the Republicans would expect to lose scores of House seats. But congressional districts have been so thoroughly gerrymandered to protect incumbents that only 40 to 50 House seats are considered to be in play. That means that the current political tides will likely affect merely 10 percent of the entire body.
So White House chief strategist Karl Rove, Republican Party chair Kenneth Mehlman and their partners-in-politicking need to fret just about a small number of House races. Do the math: If 50 House races are competitive and the Democrats need a 15-seat gain to take the House, Republicans could thwart the Dems by holding on to 18 or so of these races.
Consequently, Democrats ought to keep in mind another image: At an undisclosed location ("Sorry, Mr. Vice President, we need this for something more important."), a war room is set up, divided into two dozen cubicles. The operatives working in each square are focused on one of these do-or-die races. The Republican Party has given them unlimited resources. They have been instructed to do whatever it takes: negative advertising, rumor campaigns, dirty tricks. Gentlemen and ladies, they have been told, the civilized (that is, Republican) world depends upon you. Do not permit the (Democratic) hordes to breach your gate.
And in the cubicles, computers of massive power hum quietly. Data is being analyzed. The Republican Party is looking for its most sympathetic voters. Block by block. Household by household. It’s called "micro-targeting." This practice goes far beyond identifying folks who have registered for a party and getting them to the polls. What political micro-targeting entails is searching through massive amounts of consumer data on individuals and finding correlations that indicate who is likely to vote one way or another. Who in the 23rd District prefers bourbon to gin? Bourbon drinkers tend to vote Republicans; gin fanciers lean Democrat. Now which bourbon drinkers in that district subscribe to Field & Stream rather than The New Yorker. And so on. The Republicans have been wise to this game for several years, with the Democrats playing catch-up.
With powerful databases in hand, the Republican National Congressional Committee can tailor messages to the individual. It can send one potential Republican voter a mailing that highlights the Republican plan to build a fence at the border to keep out all those scary illegal immigrants. And it can send a mailing that hails Bush’s attempt to concoct a comprehensive immigration reform package to another voter in the same district. (It can do likewise with get-out-the-vote phone calls and door-to-door campaigns.) Not only can there be different messages for each district—remember, whatever it takes—there can be different messages within the district. All according to the data. The point is to assemble winning majorities voter by voter in those hold-back-the-tide districts.
In Washington, the focus is often on the national political narrative. And the Bush White House has naturally been scheming to shape this narrative to its advantage, realizing that doing so would provide general assistance to GOP candidates across the country. Step One was picking a fight with the Democrats on the terrorist detention legislation. The White House eventually got a bill it liked but not the battle it wanted, because Republicans—Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John Warner—led the opposition (before folding). Whatever Rove had planned for Step Two was blown aside by the Foley scandal. No doubt, he has other ideas on how the GOPers can get their national mojo back. But the game is now on the ground, outside of Washington—and in those cubicles.
Predictions are pointless. However, it does seem that even the Senate has become within reach of the Democrats. Yet if there are more page scandal revelations, more bad news out of Iraq and more Republicans slippage in the polls, Rove and the Republicans might just be able to stem a tsunami by sticking the right fingers in the right holes. If that happens, it will be quite a feat—and another sign the American political order is susceptible to the wily manipulations of well-financed and willing-to-do-anything politicos.
Posted by David Corn at October 11, 2006 02:04 PM
