If Only....

Republicans across the country are warning that increasing public discontent toward President Bush, the Iraq war and the GOP brand in general threatens to send the party's 2008 campaign planning into a tailspin.

Already, the problems are having tangible effects. Some of the party's top recruits in key races from Colorado to Florida are refusing to run for Congress. Business executives - the financial backbone of the GOP - are sending more and more money to Democrats. Overall Republican fundraising is down sharply from the same time frame during the past two presidential elections.

Then there are the voters.

Polling data released this month confirm what GOP officials are picking up anecdotally: Swing voters are swinging away from Republicans at high velocity. Most alarming to GOP strategists is a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center that found 50 percent of those interviewed consider themselves a Democrat or leaning that way; only 35 percent tilt Republican.

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"There's a certain nervousness I hear that if the war is going badly and we're still in this intractable fight between a Democratic Congress and President Bush about the course of the war, we may have a tough time."

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Bush's low approval ratings are an illustration. Some experienced GOP campaign strategists believe that there is virtually no chance that a Republican can succeed Bush if his approval ratings remain mired in the 30s. The Democratic strategy of investigating administration scandals and policy blunders is calculated to achieve exactly that goal - and the burgeoning controversy over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys has given Democrats in Congress yet another inviting target.
To make matters worse, as long as Bush is unpopular, Republicans on the Hill - already frustrated at what they perceive as White House indifference to lawmakers' political problems - are less inclined to defend Bush from attacks.

This painful cycle has some high-level Republicans braced for the likelihood that last fall's rout, in which Democrats won the House and the Senate, may be a prelude to a 2008 knockout that would leave the GOP without control of Congress or the White House for the first time since 1994.

Link.

And the best thing is that if a Dem gets elected in 08, the inevitable effing up will still look pretty good next to the current administration...