Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats — shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush’s second term.
It never ceases to amaze me the degree to which members of the Bush Administration will go in order to create their own reality. Whether or not this artificial construct bears any resemblence to reality is almost beside the point. They want it to be a certain way, and therefore it is. Truth? If you’re a Republican, it’s whatever you can convince yourself (and those around you) it is.
In reality, no one knows what will happen on Election Night. Given the current political climate, as well as the GOP’s “Scandal of the Day” campaign strategy and the clusterf—k that is Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s war in Iraq, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Republicans are most likely going to take it in the shorts. No matter how much Karl Rove and Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader might want to believe otherwise, they are facing the very real possibility of being the minority on November 8th (THEN can we impeach the lying bastard in the Oval Office??)
The official White House line of supreme self-assurance comes from the top down. Bush has publicly and privately banished any talk of losing the GOP majorities, in part to squelch any loss of nerve among his legions. Come January, he said last week, “We’ll have a Republican speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate.”
Political prescience or self-delusion? Well, we’ll know soon enough, won’t we? Personally, I’m looking forward to listening to the whining and caterwauling sure to emanate from the White House when they’re in the minority…I can hardly wait.
