The Washington Post reports today that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tendered his resignation to President Bush one day before the 2006 elections, even though it wasn’t announced until the day after the election:
CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 15 — Donald H. Rumsfeld, who came to symbolize the Bush administration’s problems in the war in Iraq, resigned as secretary of defense one day before last fall’s elections, although President Bush did not announce the move until the day after the elections.
The White House confirmed on Wednesday that Rumsfeld’s letter of resignation was dated Nov. 6, 2006, the day before voters — many of them furious about the war in Iraq — evicted Republicans from the leadership of the House and Senate.
Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino said that Bush received the letter and accepted Rumsfeld’s resignation on Election Day. The president waited until the next day to announce that he was replacing Rumsfeld with former CIA chief Robert M. Gates.
Bush said that the decision to oust Rumsfeld had come after a series of conversations with the then-defense secretary. That revelation angered many Republicans who thought GOP electoral losses would have been reduced if Rumsfeld had been removed earlier.
“If Rumsfeld had been out, you bet it would have made a difference,” Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said at the time. “I’d still be chairman of the Judiciary Committee.”
Not only did Bush not telegraph his intention to replace Rumsfeld, but he also publicly stated in the days before the elections that he envisioned Rumsfeld serving in his administration for the foreseeable future.
“I didn’t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign,” Bush said when asked about the statement by reporters. “And so the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer.”
Quite honestly, the idea that announcing Rumsfeld’s resignation the day before Election Day 2006 would have made any difference in the outcome seems absurd. The voters had already made up their minds about the Iraq War and the Bush Administration. Getting rid of Rumsfeld is unlikely to have changed things significantly.
August 16th, 2007 at 11:57 am
I don’t know how you can say that, Doug. The notion that it could have shifted a few thousand votes in Virginia and Montana, allowing the GOP to maintain its Senate majority, doesn’t seem so outlandish to me. Just because it would have been a silly reason to change one’s vote doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened. After all, I can’t think of any reason OTHER THAN a silly one to vote for Jim Webb.
August 16th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Rumsfeld resignation was a change in policy, just personnel. I seriously doubt it would have had an impact on people who were voting against the Administration based on policy.
Also, announcing a major Cabinet resignation the day before (or the day of) an election could have been interpreted as a sign of panic.
August 16th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Well, “Personnel is policy,” according to one of Morton Blackwell’s “Laws of the Public Policy Process.” My point isn’t that it would have changed the result, or even that it was likely to. And you could be right about the “panic” issue. Nevertheless, I think it’s a little too conclusory to suggest that the suggestion that it could have changed the outcome was absurd. Remember, most voters (probably 90%) aren’t as informed as you, I, virtually any other blogger, and those who read the blogs.