Second-Guessing of Bush Now Extends to Convention Site
"The premise for coming to New York is no longer valid," said Roger Stone, a longtime Republican political strategist who supports President Bush but is also known as a maverick who at times has opposed Republican candidates. "Karl Rove's master stroke idea may turn out to be an unmitigated disaster. It has the potential to highlight an issue that may be a negative by the time he gets to the convention."
Oh my, what on earth happened?
When the Republican Party chose New York City as the site of its 2004 nominating convention, the symbolism was apparent: the G.O.P. would be rallying around its nominee in the city that had come to embody the nation's resolve in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, a place where President Bush once stood on a pile of debris at ground zero, rallying the nation to unite in the war on terror.
But then came Richard A. Clarke, the 9/11 commission and a rising insurgency in Iraq. Now, as the administration faces increasing scrutiny of its handling of pre-9/11 terror threats and the wisdom of extending the war on terrorism into Iraq, the question has emerged whether New York is the best place for the Republicans to be gathering this summer.
"I would assume that it has turned from a win-win to a maybe not," said a Republican political strategist who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. Like many others, the strategist was reluctant to contradict the party line. "I don't think that it is all negative at this point, but it has the potential to turn. It's eroding slowly, and that's a real problem for them."
For President Bush, choosing New York was a somewhat risky move, even when his connection to Sept. 11 invoked nothing but a strong image of leadership and resolve. Not only is New York an overwhelmingly Democratic state, with no chance that it will give its electoral votes to the Bush-Cheney ticket, but any perception that he was exploiting 9/11 for political gain could threaten to undermine their effort to emphasize the central theme of his re-election campaign.
But while some Republican leaders still express confidence about staging the convention in New York, a few very tough weeks in which the president's former counterterrorism adviser has questioned the administration's handling of the Qaeda threat and dozens of Americans have died in Iraq have made other strategists nervous. They say they fear it could underscore any second-guessing of the president on national security issues.
Well now, what do we have here? It's certainly not a failure to communicate. The following states are suggested as alternatives based on the goodies it has received from this administration. This criterion serves two purposes: whip up our side for scheduled protests and make that state use some of those goodies. We can quibble over the city later. Let's name that state.