Dubya's Turns for the Worse

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4231177/

Dubya's Turns for the Worse
By Richard S. Dunham
Updated: 7:00 p.m. ET Feb. 09, 2004

In a little more than a month, the 2004 Presidential campaign has been
turned on its head. Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has gone from
Democratic front-runner to fading also-ran. North Carolina Senator John
Edwards has gone from charismatic longshot to everybody's second choice
for the top spot -- or top choice for the second spot. Massachusetts
Senator John Kerry has been transformed from flailing Washington insider
to Democratic nominee-apparent.

To this longtime campaign-watcher, however, the most shocking turnaround
has been the sudden decline in the political fortunes of President Bush.
Despite plenty of good economic news and the capture of Saddam Hussein,
the Republican incumbent has had one of the roughest six-week stretches
I can recall since Jimmy Carter's reelection bid faded in October, 1980,
amid the U.S. diplomatic hostage crisis in Iran, economic malaise, and
debating debacles.

If there's any good news for the President, it's that he may be getting
the bad news out of his system early. Then again, it could be the
beginning of a political death spiral.

SCORCHED TEFLON. This much is clear: The signals have turned sour for
the President -- surprisingly so. An Associated Press/Ipsos Poll
conducted in early February shows Bush's approval rating at 47%, with
50% disapproving of his performance in office. A month before, Bush had
a 14-point bulge in his favorable rating, 56% to 42%. Worse still, 43%
of voters said they would definitely vote for somebody else for
President, while 37% are firmly behind Bush, and 18% say they would
consider another candidate.

After months of nonstop attacks from the Democratic Presidential
candidates, it's obvious that some of their criticisms of Bush have
begun to take hold. According to a Feb. 5-6 CNN/Time Poll, voters think
Bush is too closely tied to special interests -- 55% to 38% -- and would
say anything to get reelected, 52% to 45%. Head-to-head matchups with
Kerry show a close race, with polls ranging from a seven-point
Democratic edge to a four-point Republican advantage -- a big drop from
the double-digit lead Bush held at the end of '03.

The White House message machine was concerned enough about the poll
slippage that the communications czars decided to make the President
available for an hourlong interview on NBC's Meet the Press, the first
time he has submitted to a Sunday talk-show interview since taking
office. Judging from the early reviews, it looks like a misstep.
Critics, including some Republicans, said the President looked nervous
and defensive, far from the tough Commander-in-Chief Americans came to
know in the days following September 11.

So what else has gone wrong for Bush? Here are a few of the major
contributors to the slide:
The jobless recovery. Even though many economic indicators are pointing
up, voters remain concerned about the loss of nearly 3 million
private-sector jobs during the Bush Presidency and the sluggish pace of
new-job creation during the recovery. One Democratic candidate has
dubbed it the "job-loss recovery." A Feb. 1-5 Annenberg Public Policy
Center Poll found that just 22% of Americans rated economic conditions
as good or excellent, while 77% described them as fair or poor. Ratings
for Bush's handling of the economy, which topped 50% in December for the
first time in a year, have slipped back into the forties.
Not good for an incumbent seeking reelection. And especially unsettling
news in states such as Ohio and West Virginia, which helped give Bush an
electoral margin in 2000 but also have substantial manufacturing sectors
and restive electorates.

Weapons of mass distraction. The President's credibility and
foreign-policy ratings have declined in the wake of former U.S. weapons
inspector David Kay's declaration that the Administration is unlikely to
find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Independent voters, in
particular, report increasing doubts about Bush's veracity. In the
CNN/Time poll, by 53% to 41%, independents say they don't believe what
the President says on weapons of mass destruction. And by 52% to 36%,
they don't believe his comments about the cost of rebuilding Iraq. The
rising death toll among U.S. soldiers in Iraq doesn't help Bush on the
home front, either.

State of the Union setback. Something unusual happened in late January:
The President's ratings declined after his State of the Union address.
That rarely happens when the Chief Executive delivers what's usually his
most high-profile speech of the year to Congress and the nation. This
year's theme-free, laundry-list presentation -- accompanied by juvenile
theatrics on the floor of the House of Representatives by Republican
lawmakers -- actually seems to have set Bush back among voters. Rather
than giving them reasons to reelect him, the speech seems to have turned
people off to his Presidency.

Budget red ink. Republican conservatives howled in protest when Bush, a
professed fiscal conservative, submitted to Congress a budget with the
largest deficit in American history. The Cato Institute, a
conservative/libertarian think tank, denounced the nation's CEO as a
reckless big spender. Nor did this budget pass the smell test. It listed
the cost of rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, and deploying and
maintaining hundreds of thousands of troops in the Middle East at $0
[the billions of dollars in costs are being deliberately kept off-budget.]

This trickery gave Democrats a chance to score easy rhetorical points.
"The most fiscally irresponsible President in history," rants Gene
Sperling, Bill Clinton's National Economic Council boss. Even some old
GOP hands are aghast. The Bush budget "basically gives the Pentagon the
key to the back door of the Treasury," worries Lawrence Korb, a former
Reagan Administration State Dept. official.
Medicare backlash. If Republicans thought they would win the hearts and
votes of seniors [and preretirement baby boomers] by passing a new
Medicare drug benefit, they may have been overly optimistic. Polls show
many seniors dissatisfied with the details of the plan passed by the GOP
Congress and signed by Bush last year. The President has been losing
ground most rapidly among voters aged 65 and older, where his
personal-approval and his job-performance ratings are lowest, a Feb. 4-5
Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll finds.

The Kerry Kraze. On the Democratic side, the Massachusetts senator has
been riding a wave of favorable publicity, fed by glowing media reports
and primary victories. It's likely that his ratings will never be much
higher. The Republican attack machine -- abetted by a press corps ready
to pounce on the high-flying Kerry after a month of fluffy coverage --
is test-marketing themes that eventually should bring him down to earth
[see BW, 2/5/04, "Kerry: Already on the GOP Firing Line"]. Think
Taxachusetts liberal. Think "more liberal than Teddy Kennedy." Think
"Son of Dukakis." Think Boston Brahmin. You get the picture.
This remains a fluid Presidential race. Bush's popularity ratings are
still better than his father's were 12 years ago as he entered his
wintertime political demise. Many polls continue to show Bush's
job-approval rating near or over the magic 50% mark that usually gets a
President reelected, so he's not in free-fall. And, as Republican
pollster Bill McInturff points out, the percentage of Americans saying
the country is on the "right track" is heading upward, normally a good
sign for an incumbent.

What's more, Bush still has one reliably bankable asset: He receives
extremely good ratings for being a strong and decisive leader who shares
people's values. By 50% to 29%, voters say they are proud to have Bush
as Commander-in-Chief. Rather than presaging a big Bush loss, I read the
latest polling problems for the President as pointing toward another
50/50 photo finish in November.
Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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