Avlon on Independents and moderates

John Avlon, centrist Independent, former speech writer for Rudi Giuliani, author, columnist and associate editor for the New York Sun is passionate about centrism and the dangers of hyper-partisanship. In his column yesterday he wrote about Bush's Credibility Gap.

Despite his campaign in 2000 as a "uniter, not a divider," President Bush has been a polarizing figure since reaching the White House.

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President Bush often speaks of his desire to find "bipartisan solutions" and "put aside partisan politics," as he did most recently calling for entitlement reform in his State of the Union address. And while we must assume that the president's statements are made in good faith, many of his political allies have pursued a more hardball partisan agenda with Mr. Bush's apparent approval, leading to the credibility gap evident in his shrinking base of political support.

While pundits of all stripes have consistently described the American electorate in terms of "Red" conservatives and "Blue" liberals/progressives, the reality is that neither group approaches even 50% of the electorate. Bush like the presidents before him was elected by Independents and moderates voting concurrently with his ideological base. And his dropping poll numbers are best explained as a loss of support among Independents and moderates.

The Gallup poll has shown that the steepest loss in support for the president since his reelection has come from independents and moderate Republicans.
Indeed independents and moderates - who initially supported the president after his election at levels consistently around 55%, and near 90% in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks - now show something between disregard and active dislike for President Bush, with his support plummeting to 27% for independents and 31% among moderates.
The president's anemic support among these bellwether groups is evidence of his failure to solidify broad popularity beyond his base.

While I was nominally supportive of the President in the aftermath of 9/11, which was the first and only time that he genuinely impressed me, count me among the Independents who now exhibit "active dislike" for Bush. Part of that is personal. I've never believed him to be fit for such an important office, which is the reason I didn't vote for him in 2000. But part of it stems from my roots as a conservative. Avlon gets to the core of that part with...

Now influential members of the Republican base are expressing displeasure with the president's policies as well.
Noted conservative economist and sometime columnist Bruce Bartlett recently published a polemic against the president titled "The Imposter" in which he criticized the White House and the Republican Congress's combined abandonment of fiscal conservatism.
This week, former Nixon aide Kevin Phillips - the analytic prophet of 1969's "The Emerging Republican Majority" - published a new critique of the emerged Republican majority titled "American Theocracy." Phillips focuses on the influence of religious right, the generational irresponsibility of deficit spending, and the powerful pull of oil interests on American foreign policy. While Phillips has never been a great fan of the Bush family - criticizing what he sees as corporate cronyism - this original Republican revolutionary's newest attack indicates the extent to which the current Bush administration has lost the once party faithful.

One of the things that most disgusts me about the current crop of "conservatives" is that they're not even conservative. They just pretend to be conservatives.

Last night John Avlon was on the PBS show NOW with David Brancaccio talking about the same basic issues which this column is about. He talked about his belief that Independents and moderates are getting fed up with the partisan BS. I think he's absolutely right about that. Either there are a lot more serious Independent candidates for political office or I'm only now noticing them because I certainly don't remember this many Independent candidates for important political offices from Congress to Governorships of more than one state.

Let's hope most of them win. I certainly am...