Leader's Rise Reflects Growing Concern in Republican Ranks

They had damned well better be concerned!

 

They have no idea what's about to hit them like a killer Tsunami.

 

The dumbing down of America has been quite successful, but not anywhere near as successful as the Republicans had thought.

 

They are like frogs in a pot of water. By the time they realize that the water has come to a boil, it will be too late. 

 

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: February 3, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — The surprise election of Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio as House majority leader was a cry of concern by an entrenched Republican majority, acutely worried that voter unease about corruption and partisan excesses could threaten its control of Congress this November.

Mr. Boehner packaged himself as the reform candidate, methodically distancing himself from Representative Tom DeLay, the hard-driving former majority leader identified with both ethics investigations and a searingly partisan manner. His victory, following the restrained and politically unadventurous State of the Union speech on Tuesday night by President Bush, left the impression of a party on the defensive as it surveys the inhospitable electoral terrain.

White House officials have grown increasingly anxious about the prospect that Democrats could regain control of the House this November, even as they have become less worried about holding on to the Senate. Their concern is particularly pointed because if Republicans lose control of either house of Congress, it is difficult to see what Mr. Bush could accomplish in his last two years in office.

After 12 years of Republican control of the House, the White House views House Republicans as vulnerable to precisely the wave of voter discontent that gave them control of the House in the first place in 1994.

"If they are not worried about next November, they are whistling past the graveyard," said Joe Gaylord, a Republican consultant who helped engineer that 1994 Republican sweep that led to the election of Newt Gingrich as the Republican speaker.

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