Novak: If Bush loses the GOP will implode

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When conservatives gathered in the nation's capital last Wednesday for a panel discussion on the 2004 election, they certainly didn't leave with good news about President Bush's re-election hopes. Even the conservative member of the panel said Republicans weren't excited by Bush.

"For all the talk about polarization, I find a startling agreement [from] everybody I talk to," syndicated columnist Robert Novak told the audience. "Nobody seems to like George Bush very much. The Democrats I talk to hate him and the Republicans aren't very enthusiastic about him."

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Novak said the president needs to do a better job of strengthening his base, starting with his Sept. 2 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Social Security and tax reform would be good agenda items to begin with, Novak said.

If the key elements of the base -- the business community and Christian conservatives -- give Bush the support he needs, the president has a solid shot of being re-elected, in Novak's opinion.

But at the end of the day, it's a Bush loss that worries Novak.

"If George W. Bush loses this election, you are going to find an implosion in the Republican Party," Novak said. "The Christian conservatives will be blamed, unfairly I think, by people who don't want them in the party."

Such an implosion might not seem possible for a president who has the support of 80 percent of Republicans. But the loss of the White House to one of the Senate's most liberal members would trigger what Novak calls a political realignment not seen in decades.

Political realignments don't happen often. While there is little agreement when such realignments begin and end, defining moments in the last century tell us that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's election in 1932 started a progressive movement that lasted for more than 30 years.

With the exception of Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican who was elected in 1952 more for his military accomplishments than his party status, the GOP didn't make a forceful return to power until 1968 when Richard Nixon was elected president.

"We are in the last stage of a massive political realignment that began in 1968," Novak argued. "It was not the kind of political realignment that we had in 1932 when it really came very suddenly. People didn't realize it was happening."

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the Republicans aren't very enthusiastic about him."

Novak should spend some time with the Republicans on this board. He can do no wrong!