Bush sets out to rally the GOP base
Pitch to voters trumpets taxes, marriage, security
SELLERSBURG, Ind. -- President Bush plans a string of public rallies across the country this week, highlighting domestic themes as well as national security in the final stretch of a campaign that will determine whether Republicans retain their majorities in the House and Senate.
Bush has appeared at private fund-raisers for individual candidates this year. Now he has begun speaking directly to voters on issues such as tax relief and gay marriage, playing to conservative Republican voters in such strongholds as Indiana, Georgia, Montana, Nevada, and Texas.
With Republican control of the House and Senate increasingly in question in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, the president's visits and tone could determine the outcome of a handful of close races.
Bush held his first rally of the election season Saturday in Sellersburg. He galvanized supporters in a packed high school gym by pledging to oppose gay marriage, a theme Republican candidates have revived after a New Jersey court ruled last week in favor of gay couples.
"Activist judges try to define America by court order," Bush told the crowd of 4,000 at Silver Creek High School, flanked by Representative Mike Sodrel, Republican of Indiana, who is running for reelection. "Just this week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is between a man and a woman."
At that, the raucous crowd went wild, shouting "USA," stomping their feet, and shaking dozens of red, white, and blue pompoms.
The New Jersey Supreme Court last week ruled that gay and lesbian couples in that state should have all the rights and benefits of marriage, leaving it up to legislators to decide whether to call such partnerships marriages or civil unions.
Constitutional amendments banning gay marriage will be on the ballot in eight states this November, including South Carolina, which Bush visited Saturday to greet troops and attend a fund-raiser outside Charleston.
In Sellersburg, Bush also pressed his theme that Democrats would raise taxes if they gain control of Congress. "They want to get in your pocketbook," he said. "We're not going to let them."
Democrats must gain 15 seats to win control of the House and six seats to win the Senate. Recent polls show Democrats have their best chance to reclaim the House since the GOP swept them from power in 1994, and a shot at capturing the Senate.
Some beleaguered Republican candidates have distanced themselves from the president in recent debates, television ads, and closed fund-raisers as his approval rating remained below 40 percent this month.
House Democratic candidates continued to emphasize the GOP role in the Iraq war. The party's campaign committee said it would air television commercials criticizing Republicans for supporting the war in about a dozen competitive races in the coming days.
Democrats in Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, and Pennsylvania have launched ads that remind voters of their opponents' support for Bush.
"This election is becoming more and more a referendum on George Bush, his failed policies both overseas and at home with a rubber stamp Congress," Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, said yesterday on "Fox News Sunday."
Senator Elizabeth Dole, Republican of North Carolina, told Fox News that Iraq and the broader fight against terrorism were important issues, but that "President Bush's name is not on the ballot."
The campaign landscape has changed dramatically since the midterm elections of 2002, when Bush's approval rating was 64 percent. Then, Bush targeted battleground districts for massive, boisterous rallies.
This week, Bush is expected to focus on conservative states in the hopes of boosting Republican House campaigns in states he won by large margins in 2004. "That's where he's more useful," said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist close to presidential adviser Karl Rove.
Bush will campaign today in Sugar Land, the district where former US representative Tom DeLay was a political fixture for more than a decade. DeLay carried 63 percent of the vote two years ago, and Bush won 64 percent in 2004. But the former House majority leader abandoned his reelection bid and resigned his seat after former aides pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal.
The president also is slated to visit to two districts in Georgia tomorrow and Wednesday. He will headline a rally in Statesboro for Max Burns, a Republican seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent John Barrow. The district is so pro-Bush that even Barrow is airing television ads that proclaim "I agree with George Bush."
Bush will appear later this week in Montana and Nevada. The president is likely to make 20 stops before Election Day to help House candidates, possibly in Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Indiana, and Florida, according to Republican strategist Scott Reed.
"In this phase of the game it's about winning a day in the news, and a visit by the president will about guarantee you win the day," Reed said. He called Bush's agenda "a last-minute flurry to limit the losses . . . and keep the House from going Democrat."
Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said yesterday that a Democratic-led Congress would mean higher taxes. Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," Mehlman suggested there would be "across-the-board tax increases affecting millions of Americans" if Representative Charles Rangel of New York, a Democrat, became chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Democratic party chief Howard Dean told CBS that Democrats "have no intention of raising taxes except on the people who have got enormous tax breaks -- like the oil companies -- from the Republicans."
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report. 