Ann
Here is the full text of Laura Litvan's article regarding Rep. Tom Davis's remarks about the Presidential election.
This is a very negative article that is now being used on the net as the authority by the Obama and Hillary supporters regarding this election and is being used to discredit McCain and other candidates. If Tom Davis said it-----then it must be so---------think not.
Davis is not running for reelection in Northern Virginia.
Who is Davis? Davis started out in local politics in Virginia riding both sides of the political fence-----running on the Republican ticket but hiring Democrats to work in his local office despite protests from his own supporters in the 1980's and 1990's.
Davis is the recent former chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee yet is speaking out in a negative manner about his own party.
As Chairman, Davis was in a position to influence the future of the Republican Party-------if things are as bleak as he claims, then he must bear and accept some major portion of responsibility for that bleakness as the former Chairman of the NRCC.
Read a little further into the article, you will see that Davis is expressing support for the liberal leftist issues that were opposed by the Moderate Reagan supporters in 1980 and 1984.
Moderate Reagan Voters will be courted by Obama and Hillary as they attempt a move from the left positions. These Reagan Voters are very bright and understand deception when they see it.
Davis indicates that the Republicans have 30% identification with them------that is normal in Davis's Virginia-----the Democrat Party has about the same identification rate for them. The remaining 40% are Independents.
When Reagan ran for President in 1980-----Republican identification was about 21 to 28%. He won in a landslide in Virginia. The 30% that Davise mentions is in keeping with where the Republicans stood in the spring of 1980.
Davis is predicting widespread losses for Republican candidates unless office holders distance themselves from Bush. Don't agree.
Democrats already have their long knives out for all Republican Candidates at all levels of government whether or not they are identified with Bush-----there's no point in being a Judas type and deny their association with President Bush.
If one runs as a Republican the association is automatic----candidates can use this effectively in a positive manner.
Final thought:
I do wonder why Davis has decided to make these comments at this time on Bloomberg.
mj
DAVIS Says Republicans Too Near `Radioactive' Bush
By Laura Litvan
May 16 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush is ``absolutely radioactive' and Republicans will suffer widespread election losses in November unless they distance themselves from him, said Representative TOM DAVIS, a former leader of the party's House campaign committee.
``They've got to get some separation from the president,' DAVIS, of Virginia, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt,' scheduled to be aired `Republicans, I think, have time to turn it around to some extent,' said DAVIS, 59, who isn't seeking re-election this year. ``But, if they don't, we're cruising for a bruising.'
DAVIS warned his colleagues about further losses after Democrats won House special elections to replace Republicans in Louisiana, Mississippi and in the Illinois seat formerly held by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
A Mistake
DAVIS said Republicans made a mistake in backing Bush's opposition to expanding a children's health insurance program, providing federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research and changing Iraq War policy. They are now making a similar error by opposing a plan to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, he said.
``In every case, they've walked down an alley where they're 30 percent of the electorate,' DAVIS said. ``And that makes you a permanent minority.'
Congressional Republicans must offer their own solutions on gas prices and other issues because there is ``nothing coming out of the White House' on policy.
The House Republican leadership team, under Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, has been offering the ``same old, same old' since the 2006 elections, he said. Animosity between Boehner and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman TOM Cole must be overcome to aid Republican candidates and secure their own party positions.
`Pull Together'
``Republicans have got to pull together and work as a team,' he said.
If the leadership fails to help the party change course, ``they'll be thrown out by the caucus in December,' he said.
Representative Chris Van Hollen, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said voters will likely see Republican attempts this year to separate themselves from Bush as ``pure political opportunism.'
``Eleventh-hour conversions can be very unsightly when people try and flip-flop at the last minute,' he said in a telephone interview.
DAVIS also questioned Bush's comments this week that he won't negotiate with leaders of countries that sponsor terrorism -- an apparent slap at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's foreign-policy statements. That may have hurt Republicans because Bush was the messenger, DAVIS said.
`Turn Him Off'
``The difficulty for us right now is that President Bush is, although he's the president and the leader of the party, when you turn on the TV and see him, two-thirds of the people turn him off,' DAVIS said. ``They're not going to believe him even when he's right so he's got to get surrogates.'
DAVIS added that Bush may have gone too far when he said that ``some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,' in a speech in Israel. Bush said that one senator suggested before World War II that he might have been able to dissuade Adolf Hitler's aggression.
``When you throw in Hitler and some things, you know, it raises the stakes,' DAVIS said. ``I don't know how this will play off.'
The appeasement comments may be an effective slap at Democrats, he said. ``But just listening to the talk shows and the call-ins and everything else at this point, there's a lot of hostility out there,' DAVIS said.
Even with the difficulties facing Republicans, McCain might prevail because he has the support of independent voters who abandoned the other Republican presidential candidates, DAVIS said.
``He is positioned to do that because the things that are carrying him forward right now are the things that a lot of Republicans have not liked him for over the years,' DAVIS said. ``But that independence puts him in good stead in this environment.'
bloomberg.com |
