In contrast to a president's coattails that sweep his party to congressional victories, skunktails have the reverse effect. Bush's skunktails consist of abuses of power, corruption, and incompetence now so widely recognized that, according to recent polls, those who "strongly disapprove" of his administration now equal those who merely "approve." Because turnout in midterm elections depends largely on intensity of preference, Bush's malodorous tails would seem to bode well for Democrats who need to win six more seats in the Senate and 15 in the House in order to take back Congress.
But there is an asymmetry of consequence between Republican and Democratic skunktails. Even before George W. came to Washington, Republican voters had low expectations of government. Presumably then, the fiascos of Katrina, Iraq, the Social Security drug benefit, the Bush fiscal policy, vote-buying and sweetheart deals with corporations, spying on Americans, Abu Ghraib and the Dubai port deal, to list only a few of the misadventures of the last five years and three months, have not especially shocked Republicans. They have confirmed established Republican dogma that government cannot do anything well and is not to be trusted.
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