The McClellan Mess: Assessing the Fallout
Chris Cillizza's Politics Blog -- The Fix
washingtonpost.com's Politics Blog
It's easy amid the maelstrom of coverage surrounding former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellan's tell-all (or at least tell-most) memoir to assume that this could be a heavy blow to the Republican brand and the party's hopes of keeping the White House.
After all, McClellan alleges in his new book -- "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception" -- that the Bush White House is in a "permanent campaign" state, focused on "manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage." He also takes on his former boss over the war in Iraq, the CIA leak case and the way in which the press covered the White House.
While the McClellan story has dominated the cable airwaves today and, following a series of interviews with McClellan starting in the morning with the "Today" show, will do the same tomorrow, interviews with a number of GOP strategists suggested that the long-term impact of the story is far less than first meets the eye.
"There are very few people who are undecided about the President today," said Republican consultant Dan Hazelwood. "The McClellan stories will merely serve to crystallize and solidify people's existing perceptions."
Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster, echoed that sentiment. "None of this is breaking new ground," he said. "Voter attitudes regarding the president are pretty well set, and while this will make waves inside the Beltway, it will hardly cause a ripple with voters on the national level," said Newhouse.
As evidence, Newhouse cited a focus group he and Alex Bellone -- both of Public Opinion Strategies -- conducted on Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio. At the last minute, the duo decided to ask the group, a mixture of Democrats and Republicans, about McClellan.
Two strains of thought predominated, Newhouse said.
The first was "initial anger at McClellan for writing a tell-all book...he's the President's confidant - you just don't do that to people," said Newhouse.
The second was that there was little impact of the President or his administration as a result of the McClellan book. "No one seemed surprised at the revelations," according to Newhouse.
(Newhouse wouldn't disclose the sponsor of the focus group but said it was a non-political client.)
Sure, it's in these GOP consultants' interests to downplay the potential impact of McClellan's book, but polling does tend to bear out the heavily bifurcated nature of the electorate when it comes to President Bush.
A look at data over the last year shows Bush's job approval rating consistently mired in the high 20s/low 30s. Take the last handful of national polls publicly released: In the ABC/Washington Post survey 28 percent approved of the job Bush was doing; in the Quinnipiac poll the job approval number was at 31 percent; an NPR survey put it at 33 percent. That window -- between 28 percent and 33 percent -- is where nearly every poll has pegged Bush's approval at over the past several years.
Given the consistency of those numbers, it's hard to imagine any single event -- even one as explosive as the release of McClellan's book -- changing it.
If you came into the controversy over McClellan's memoir still supporting the president and his administration, you will likely see the book as an attempt by the former press secretary to make a buck off his time in the spotlight. (That angle is the one, not coincidentally, being pushed by the White House and its various surrogates.)
If, on the other hand, you believe the Bush administration has led the country in a disastrous direction over the last seven years, you are likely to see McClellan's book as a validation of your views and a sign that even some of Bush's most loyal advisers are seeing the light.
That doesn't mean, however, that Democrats won't use the McClellan book, and the allegations therein, to make the case against Bush and the Republican Party in the fall. They will.
The important thing to remember when seeking to assess the McClellan fallout is that the story is still in its very early stages. The Bush White House's reaction -- some would say overreaction -- to it could well keep it churning for days (and maybe even weeks) to come.
Seen from 10,000 feet, McClellan's broadside is yet another blow to a Republican Party that is already contending with dismal approval ratings, losses in three straight special elections, a cash deficit at the congressional level and a general level of malaise infecting the party from the activist level all the way to the candidate level.
John Weaver, a former senior aide to McCain, addressed the cumulative effect of the series of negative stories on the party brand: "Taken by itself, there will be very little, if any, fallout for the general election. A single nick won't matter; but a thousand nicks will be fatal. And we're much closer to a thousand nicks than we are to one."
For John McCain, the episode offers no immediate danger to his presidential campaign, although a prolonged look at the problems with the Republican Party by the media does the presumptive nominee no favors.
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