A Time to Regroup

(5 of 5)

It won't help that Bush's main enforcers on the Hill are themselves in a defensive crouch. Cheney could find himself a witness in a criminal trial, House majority leader Tom DeLay had to step down to fight indictments for money laundering, and Senate majority leader Bill Frist is under investigation for possible insider trading. The party's ambitious comers are not running as Bush's allies and heirs, and the 2006 campaign promises to be an epic battle. G.O.P. pollster Bill McInturff says the percentage of people who define themselves as "very interested" in the 2006 elections is already at 57%, compared with 39% in October 2002, a month before those midterm elections. History is certainly not on Bush's side. Since 1966, if a President's approval rating dipped below 50% at a midterm election, his party lost an average of 42 seats in the House--which next year would be enough to put the Democrats back in power. Still, optimists at the White House have reached the point that they are taking comfort from the example of Clinton, who came back strong after his party's shellacking in the 1994 elections and wound up popular despite his own, very different set of scandals. Next thing you know, Bush will be calling himself the Comeback Kid.