WASHINGTON — Stunned House Republicans vowed campaign changes Wednesday and debated the wisdom of attacking Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama in congressional races after their third consecutive election defeat in once-friendly territory.
“The political atmosphere . . . is the worst since Watergate and far more toxic than the fall of 2006 when we lost 30 seats,” Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia wrote the leadership in a bluntly worded memo.
“Clearly, I think we’ve got to do a better job” going into the November elections, said the Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner, one day after Democrat Travis Childers won a Mississippi congressional victory. That seat had been in Republican hands since 1994.
Several lawmakers and aides said a change was possible but far from certain at the National Republican Congressional Committee, where Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole is chairman. Party leaders also said they were on the verge of distributing a campaign-season manifesto setting out conservative positions on taxes and other issues.
Davis, a former chairman of the campaign committee who is retiring at the end of this year, noted that polls show Americans overwhelmingly believe the country is headed down the wrong track, that President Bush is unpopular and that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee enjoyed a cash advantage of $44 million to $7 million as of March 31.
Childers’ victory came one week after Rep. Don Cazayoux won a House seat in the Baton Rouge, La., area that had been in Republican hands for three decades. Over the winter, Rep. Bill Foster won an election in Illinois to succeed former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who had been in Congress more than 20 years. All three races were necessitated by resignations by incumbent Republicans.
Childers and Cazayoux both ran as conservatives, but Republicans and their allies sought to link them to Obama in TV commercials. In both cases, some Republicans said the tactic appeared to backfire, prompting blacks to turn out in unexpectedly large numbers and vote for the Democrats.
One-third of the population in the Louisiana district and one-quarter of the population in the Mississippi district is black.
“We’re not going to be able to scare people into voting Republicans by being against Barack Obama. You have to have a relevant agenda and a compelling reason to vote Republican,” said Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss.
