On offense, Cheney scores points

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s sweeping indictment of administration policy changes on the handling of terrorism-suspect detainees has thrown President Obama on the defensive and scored points for the vice president and his party, according to pollsters and political analysts.

While Mr. Cheney has come under increasing fire from Democrats for charging that Mr. Obama’s policies have made the country more vulnerable to future terrorist attacks, polls show a majority of Americans side with him on using aggressive interrogation methods on high value al Qaeda prisoners and are against moving them from the detention facility at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to maximum-security facilities in the U.S.

“Cheney’s critical comments in recent weeks and the Senate vote against funds for closing Guantanamo did put the president on the defensive and led to his speech” on Friday defending his national security policies, said Thomas Mann, a presidential scholar at the liberal Brookings Institution.

That speech occurred on the same day Mr. Cheney delivered a blistering speech of his own in defense of the Bush administration policies that he helped to shape and that he said had kept the nation safe in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Cheney’s aggressive, nonstop criticism of the White House’s actions, beginning with Mr. Obama’s ban on harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, have unleashed a wave of attacks from his liberal critics. It has also won him praise from his party’s conservative base and, according to polls, support for his positions among independent voters that the GOP needs if it is to make a political comeback in future elections.

“I have tested the message and the message clearly helps Republicans,” said Whit Ayres, a pollster for Resurgent Republic, a GOP advocacy group. A poll he conducted May 11 to 14 found voters supported “harsh interrogation” of al Qaeda prisoners by a 19-point margin, 53 percent to 34 percent - including 53 percent support among independents.

A similarly “strong majority believes the Guantanamo Base prison helps protect America, rather than undermines our moral authority. Independents are, again, much more like Republicans than Democrats on this issue,” Mr. Ayres said in a report on his poll’s findings.

“The challenge for Republicans now is winning back independents who abandoned Republicans in droves in 2006 and 2008. This helps persuade independents that their values are most closely aligned with Republicans than with Democrats,” he said.

While Mr. Cheney has been a constant Democratic target of derision for his outspoken criticism of Mr. Obama’s policies on terrorism, polls show his low approval ratings have begun to rise lately. A CNN poll conducted last week found that 55 percent still view the former vice president unfavorably, but 37 percent now have a favorable impression of him, up eight points since January.

“Vice President Cheney has been the target of every media, from mainstream to comic. But he spoke today as before without regard to politics, but with abiding respect for the truth. His address today was direct, well-reasoned and convincing,” former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said Thursday.

Nevertheless, some of his supporters say he remains a divisive figure who can undercut the effectiveness of his role as a critic of administration policies.

“He is very effective and well-received in the Republican red states that voted for John McCain, but at the same time he is a polarizing figure, and in the larger universe of American politics you are either going to like him or hate him,” said Republican media strategist Ron Bonjean, a former communications adviser to the Republican leadership in Congress.

“But right now, Cheney’s message and his constituency is paying off and making Obama look extremely weak on fighting terrorism,” Mr. Bonjean said.

Still, Republican leaders in some of the key swing states that will be critical to the GOP’s future were cautious in their comments last week about Mr. Cheney’s effectiveness as a party messenger.

“I don’t think there is anything wrong about his speaking up and speaking out when he thinks policies will weaken our national security. I don’t find any fault in that,” said Florida Republican state Chairman Jim Greer.

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