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Backing Away From Bush

Some Republican Candidates Avoid Ties With Unpopular President

By John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal

At a Friday fund-raiser for one embattled Republican lawmaker, freshman Rep. Geoff Davis of Kentucky, Mr. Bush even joked about his shrinking political range: Mr. Davis "really wanted Laura" to appear, Mr. Bush said, to laughter from a roomful of northern Kentucky donors. "He said, 'You stay at home, Mr. President. Yes, next time.' Unfortunately, she was tied up."

This week, the awkward distancing is likely to be on display again in Pennsylvania, where Republican incumbents already are under the gun, and some suffered big losses at the legislative level in last week's primary.

Mr. Bush will hold a fund-raiser tomorrow for two at-risk Republican House members in the Philadelphia suburbs, Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick and Jim Gerlach. Both are running in districts where Mr. Bush's 2004 opponent, John Kerry, took 51% of the vote.

But the third Republican in the area, Mr. Weldon, whose district was even friendlier to Mr. Kerry, won't benefit from the event and isn't expected to show up. Instead, Mr. Weldon relied on Mr. McCain to help campaign and raise money.

One local paper in suburban Delaware County quoted Mr. Weldon suggesting that he is running from Mr. Bush, saying, "What am I supposed to do?"

Mr. Weldon explains in a subsequent interview that he is "not really running away from the president." But with Mr. Bush's poll numbers so low, he says, "there's nothing the president can do to help me."

At a recent White House bill-signing ceremony, Mr. Weldon says, the president pulled him aside in an anteroom and said he understood that Mr. Weldon had a difficult race this year. "Just be happy I'm not at the top of the ticket," the president joked, according to Mr. Weldon.

Democrats, of course, are doing their best to turn the 2006 election into a referendum on Mr. Bush. Mr. Weldon's opponent, Joe Sestak, a retired Navy vice admiral, hammers the point that Mr. Weldon is trying to duck his connections to Mr. Bush. "Curt Weldon is worried," Mr. Sestak says. "That's why he's trying to manufacture a separate life, and it won't hold."

Earlier this month, the Democratic National Committee fired off a news release pointing out that a private fund-raiser for Mr. Weldon, headlined by Vice President Dick Cheney, was held in Washington. Until then, the $1,000-a-plate luncheon, held at a lobbying firm, had gone unnoticed in the media. Noting Mr. Bush's low ratings, the DNC said, "maybe that explains why Congressman Weldon held his fund-raiser in Washington, D.C., and not Pennsylvania."

Mr. Weldon says he wasn't dodging, and that the luncheon's location was dictated by his congressional schedule.

Democrats still could overplay their hand, as Republicans did in 1998, when then-President Clinton was on the ropes over testimony concerning his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Republican talk of impeachment backfired at the polls.

For now, it is Republicans who are scrambling as more House seats appear to be at risk. Still, Republican strategists are more confident the party will hold the Senate. They also believe apparent progress in forming an Iraqi government will help, as will movement at home on immigration and tax cuts.

Last week, White House political guru Karl Rove said that internal Republican polls show Mr. Bush remains personally popular despite his low job-approval ratings. That makes it easier for Republican candidates to stand up with Mr. Bush at events -- and rake in the huge amounts of campaign cash he is able to generate.

Ken Mehlman, Republican National Committee chairman, dismisses concerns about Mr. Bush's effectiveness on the campaign trail. While the president's poll numbers are important to candidates, "what I would say is that those ... who've argued that this president is not able to help candidates ought to look at the facts," he says. "He's done more to help candidates than in either '02 or '04."