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Bush Growing More Vulnerable On Credibility, War, And The Economy |
Current rating: 0 |
by Mark Weisbrot
(No verified email address) |
29 Sep 2003
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The Republicans have reason to be scared. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll last week asked voters whether they would "probably vote for President Bush or probably vote for the Democratic candidate" next year: 42 percent chose Bush versus 40 percent for the Democrat. This difference is statistically insignificant, and was down from a 52 to 24 percent lead for Bush in April. |
"Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," the title of Al Franken's book on the American right, is starting to look less like a cartoon and more like a description that could filter into the mainstream. Last week Senator Edward M. Kennedy surprised his Senate colleagues by accusing the Bush team of going to war in Iraq for domestic political reasons, and deliberately deceiving the American public.
"There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that [the war] was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud," said Kennedy.
Kennedy's remarks were not the least bit shocking to the tens of millions of Americans who have seen through the fraud from the very beginning. Back in August of 2002, the Democrats were outpolling Republicans on the economy, the budget, Social Security, and almost all of the biggest election issues except "national security and terrorism." Millions of Americans had lost much of their retirement savings in a wave of corporate crime.
Then came the war talk, and soon all of these issues were out of the headlines. It worked: the Republicans went on to win both houses of Congress in November.
The timing was perfect and the reasons offered for the war turned out to be fraudulent -- no weapons of mass destruction, no links between Iraq and September 11. What more evidence would anyone need as to why they did it?
Yet Kennedy is the first political leader with full access to the national media to state the obvious. Hence the swift and shrill response from the Republicans, with House majority leader Tom Delay accusing Democrats of having "spewed more hateful rhetoric at President Bush than they ever did at Saddam Hussein."
The Republicans have reason to be scared. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll last week asked voters whether they would "probably vote for President Bush or probably vote for the Democratic candidate" next year: 42 percent chose Bush versus 40 percent for the Democrat. This difference is statistically insignificant, and was down from a 52 to 24 percent lead for Bush in April.
Politicians are schooled in the art of compromise and cautious speech, especially in the United States. They often forget that the unvarnished truth can at times be a powerful weapon. And this is one of those times.
There is a part of the electorate, probably about a third, that already knows that the Bush team lied about Iraq and dragged us into this mess for the most unconscionable of political motives. These include people who read Paul Krugman in the New York Times, or use the Internet to find dozens of other well-informed, even well-established writers who have made these arguments persuasively. According to the New York Times, about 38 percent of the public have consistently told pollsters they do not believe that George W. Bush was legitimately elected president.
Another part, also roughly a third, is solidly in Bush's corner. These are people who get their information from Fox News and actually believe that it is "fair and balanced." They would support the President if he invaded Sweden to liberate its people from the oppression of their welfare state.
It's that other third -- the swing voters -- that the Bush team is worried about. According to the most recent polls, their support for the war is slipping and their skepticism about President Bush is growing.
Many of these people do not get much news outside of the major broadcast media, and therefore have not been exposed to the strong arguments that Kennedy brought them last week. If more political leaders with Kennedy's level of access to the media were to pick up on these themes, it could seriously undermine President Bush's credibility.
Still, the biggest group of swing voters will probably make their decision on the basis of the economy. But President Bush is at least as vulnerable on that front, as he is poised to become the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs during his term.
It's still very early in the game and the Democrats don't have a candidate yet, but it seems that this presidential election will be theirs for the taking. If they have the courage to take it.
Mark Weisbrot is co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC (www.cepr.net).
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President Bush's Ratings In The US Opinion Polls Are At An All-time Low |
by Peter Preston
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
29 Sep 2003
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Oh, he's got trouble. No, not him: the other one. Public opinion polls, as scoffing politicians always say, aren't the real thing: but, in a country where elections of any meaningful kind only happen every two years, they're the next best thing. And too many terrible polling results can give a case of the shakes far beyond Bournemouth. Watch George Bush's hand, for instance, as he does his courtly grovel for the Queen in November. A tremor here? A clenched fist there? Nobody should be surprised if the latest sets of American polls carry on heading south at their current rate. Smile a rictus smile and examine a sampling from the last few days.
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll finds that only 50% now approve of the overall job Bush is doing - down from this year's high of 71% in April. That's the president's lowest rating since he took office. Match him against a Democratic challenger without a name or a face - just Mr Watch-this-space - on the Zogby poll and he loses 45% to 41%.
Fox News (Rupert's finest) produces a poll split 39% to 39% if an election were held today. June set those figures at 51% to 30%. NBC and Wall Street Journal pollsters currently find only 49% backing George - another all-time low on that index. And if you prefer to investigate individual state results, the evidence seems chilling enough. An Arizona Republic poll reports that a mere 34% of deep west voters are backing the Texas cowboy for re-election in a state which he won easily by six points in 2000.The rot is wide and the rot is deep.
Remember those 90% ratings after 9/11? You can forget them now, probably for ever. Of course they were phony, puffed by fear and pride: but they're only one benchmark in charting decline. A much more relevant one is the way, month by month through this torrid summer, Bush's ratings have sunk, and sunk again.
It's not disastrous yet. He has a world-record war chest and a rich party betting everything on a second triumph. The economy - stubbornly refusing to see jobless figures falling - could perk up soon. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden could row into Guantanamo Bay waving white hankies on sticks. Jacques Chirac could eat humble croissant at the UN. Events, great and small, can make a huge difference. But there are still good Republican reasons to grow pensive.
One, curiously, is the enfeebled state of the Democratic party. Two debates in and we're no better placed to guess who'll make it through the long night of the primaries. Howard Dean is leading by miles in New Hampshire, which will give him a lift. Chaps from North Carolina are doing well in South Carolina. Wesley Clark, the ex-Nato commander in Kosovo and CNN Iraq analyst, is actually ahead of the pack on some polls (though only, as the Wall Street Journal notes acidly, when voters are reminded that he's "General" Wesley Clark: put on a cap with braid and half of America still salutes automatically).
A field too weak to provide a winner? Perhaps. Opposition challenges always look lackluster before the voters start to sort them out. But these, remember, are the generic Democrats, the watch-this-spaces handing Bush a drubbing on most polls. They're misty going on non-existent, but they can still give George a fright. Their weakness mirrors his fundamental weakness.
Worse, none of the big issues are working for the White House. When Fox asks whether tax cuts have helped family finances this year, a full 61% says no. The number of Americans who think the Iraq war was worth it has slumped from 64% in April to 46% today. And the underlying currents of three years ago keep swirling along. America was divided then, riven down the middle with no more than a few hanging chads to make a difference - and it is divided again now.
The aftermath of 9/11 produced the illusion of unity. Its fading reveals that the basic splits in American opinion are as stark as ever in this half and half society. What do the papers say? Take a brisk weekend spin around Texas.
The Dallas Morning News, by some distance the state's lone journalistic star, leads with a poignant story on the families of the 19 soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas, who've died in Iraq. "So much more than statistics". The Houston Chronicle has a brusque editorial taking the Bush boys to task over the WMDs that will probably "never be found". Not only will the administration not admit the truth, it snarls, "it repeats claims demonstrably proved false and recanted by the president, as if patriotism had no need of facts". And if you want to wade through the gathering storm involving Dick Cheney, his old Halliburton corporation and its billions of contracts in Iraq, then welcome to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
These issues - issues of violent death, confusion and alleged corruption - aren't like, say, foundation hospitals. They are simple and inferential. They grind away, even in Mr Bush's own ranch backyard. They presage 13 rough, raw months to come. They should also, in prospect, give us pause.
We've become too glibly used, over the last couple of years, to lumping American policy and this American president together in a bumper bundle called "anti-Americanism", leader and country coated in identical opprobrium. It was always simplistic rubbish. It stands exposed as such now. There are many Americas and many churnings to its democracy. There are also many facets of special ness to any relationship. Maybe we didn't remember that when we plunged heedlessly into supportive action last spring. But what goes around comes around: and those polls are right around this morning, jogging an open wound of memory.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk |
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