Ports deal sparks biggest party revolt vs. Bush
Wed Mar 8, 2006 7:05 PM GMT
By Alan Elsner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican congressional opposition to the takeover of operations at six U.S. ports by a state-owned Arab company has grown into the most serious revolt President George W. Bush has faced from his own party in the five years of his presidency, analysts said on Wednesday.
Defying Bush, Republicans in the House of Representatives intended on Wednesday to attach an amendment blocking the deal to legislation providing $91 billion (52 million pounds) for states recovering from Hurricane Katrina and to finance wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That sets up a potential showdown since the legislation is seen as essential, yet Bush has threatened to veto any bill blocking the takeover of port operations by Dubai Ports World.
"This is the biggest revolt Bush has faced and it comes on the issue that has been the core and heart of his presidency, namely security," said David Birdsell, a political scientist with Baruch College in New York City.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said administration officials continued to discuss the issue with Congress but Bush remained determined to use what would be the first veto of his presidency if necessary.
Terry Jeffrey, a columnist for the conservative weekly Human Events who managed the 1996 presidential campaign of Republican Pat Buchanan, said Bush would lose this fight.
"The bottom line is, I think the Republicans in Congress are going to win on this," he said. "They will fight so hard that in the end the president will have to back down.
"Bush is not up for re-election and they are. They have popular opinion on their side and he doesn't."
Polls show about 70 percent of Americans and almost half of Republicans oppose the port deal.
For much of the first five years of the Bush presidency, he was able to exert impressive discipline on Republicans in Congress, even if some occasionally disagreed with him.
Party loyalty was frayed over Bush's failed attempt last year to reform the Social Security retirement system and came under further stress when the federal government did not adequately meet the challenge posed by Hurricane Katrina.
PROBLEMS OVER MIERS
Discipline fell apart when Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers for a vacant Supreme Court seat last year but Bush was able to reassert party unity when Miers withdrew her candidacy and he nominated Samuel Alito in her place.
Now, with Bush's approval ratings hovering at or below the 40 percent mark, many Republicans are trying to separate themselves from him, said Tom Schaller, a political scientist with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
"This revolt is a symptom of the general dissatisfaction of congressional Republicans with the president," Schaller said. "He wants them to take difficult, unpopular positions. He himself doesn't seem to care about being popular and is always ready to spend his political capital but that attitude could be very destructive to his party."
One senior Republican political operative, who did not want to be named, also blamed fatigue among members of the Bush inner circle, most of whom have been with him for his entire presidency, for the administration's failure to anticipate the storm over the ports deal and its inability to quash the revolt.
"I don't know from the standpoint of stamina how they have kept going as well as they have all these years but now the exhaustion is showing," the operative said.
"The White House hasn't taken the offensive. They haven't gone out and sold the deal. They can't let the debate rage day after day and not be a part of it," he said.
Jeffrey said more revolts might be coming for Bush, especially on the subject of immigration reform.
He said many conservatives were adamantly opposed to legislation being crafted in the Senate and to create a guest worker program to bring foreigners into the country -- an idea original proposed by Bush in 2004. |
