F-TROOP BACK TO NORMAL

Buoyed by Resurgence, G.O.P. Strives for an Era of Dominance (ADAM CLYMER, May 25, 2003, NY Times)

The Republican Party's dream of becoming the dominant party was on full display the other day at the Ottawa County Lincoln Day dinner here. Although George W. Bush lost Michigan in 2000 and the state elected a Democratic governor last November, the national and state party officials heaping roast beef and chicken onto their plates at the local fish and game club were buoyantly predicting they would take the state in 2004.

The attorney general of Michigan, Mike Cox, elected in 2002 by 5,200 votes after carrying Ottawa County by 40,712, said President Bush could count on a "grass roots army of the people who got me in office."

Jack Oliver, deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the county exemplified the Republican Party's renewed focus on "putting people back to work in politics, going door to door, friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor."

With the Congress thinly divided along partisan lines, another presidential election taking shape and the rules of campaign finance in legal limbo, the two national political parties are at crucial turning points.

Republicans are the most encouraged. Party officials around the country, convinced that this may be their moment, are raising the prospect of an era of Republican dominance.

Republicans already hold the White House, expect to continue to control the House of Representatives and have a majority in the Senate. For the first time in 50 years, a majority of state legislators are Republicans. Almost as many Americans (30 percent) call themselves Republicans as call themselves Democrats (32 percent), the narrowest gap since pollsters began measuring party identification in the 1940's.

But Republicans are not stopping there. In Michigan, as well as in other large industrial states that Mr. Bush lost, the Republican Party, nationally and at the state level, is making big investments in building new grass roots operations that its leaders contend will pay huge dividends in the next election--and put the party in an even more commanding position.

One of the architects of Republican growth, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, summed up where his party stands. "We are at parity right now," he said, "with a slight edge and good prospects."

It's easy to loose track of just how good a week President Bush--and therefore the party he leads--had last week. Just suppose that at the end of last year, someone had told you that by Memorial Day 2003: the UN would lift sanctions on a now US-run Iraq; another major tax cut would have passed; Ariel Sharon and America's hand-picked leader of Palestine would have signed on to a Bush peace plan for the Middle East; and, just to ice the cake, Congress would fund the most significant public health effort in Africa's history, a pet project of the President's. You'd have thought they were nuts.

Mr. Bush just keeps rolling the dice and winning and when he falls behind he doubles his bet and rolls again. Streaks like that tend to run out sooner or later, but they must be sweet when you're on them. If this one lasts until November '04--and at this point all it would require is a reasonable economic recovery and no terrorist attacks on US soil--the next election could reshape our politics for a couple generations, returning the country to what is arguably a natural Republican dominance after a long period of Depression-induced liberal experimentation and failure. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 24, 2003 8:52 PM