Bush on the Ropes
Comment Bush on the Ropes It now seems likely that George W. Bush will be a one-term President. Much of the country has lost confidence in his leadership. Barring another terrorist attack or the...
...Withdraw some troops: 18 percent...
...Farsighted business leaders may be concluding that Bush is too reckless a driver of the company SUV...
...He needs to make an affirmative case for himself, and he has been slow to do so...
...And 67 percent believe he cares more about protecting the interests of large corporations than those of ordinary people, the Post found in April...
...Kerry has endorsed Sharon's assassination policy he has echoed Bush's blessing for Sharon's unilateral moves on Gaza and the West Bank, and he has rejected discussions with Yasser Arafat...
...With oil prices well over $2 a gallon, American consumers are feeling a pinch...
...Some on the left, however, are not comfortable in Kerry's tepid bath...
...A Washington Post/ABC poll of May 25 found that 57 percent of Americans disapproved of the President's handling of this scandal, while only 36 percent approved...
...Bush has this group, which constitutes about 15 to 20 percent of the voting public, sewn up, and Karl Rove has been doing some extra stitching just to be sure, pressing Bush to support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage...
...energy policy will continue to drag him down...
...It's easy to understand why America is turning sour on the war...
...they feel such an urgency to get Bush out of the White House before it's too late that they are willing to sign on the dotted line right now-and to work their tails off for Bush's defeat...
...On the Iraq War, other than throwing barbs at Bush for the way he got the United States into this debacle, Kerry has a position that is nearly identical to Bush's...
...On the economy Kerry is keen on simply rehiring the old Bill Clinton team, led by Robert Rubin, which sided time and again with Wall Street over Main Street...
...Equally worrisome for Bush is that 54 percent of those polled thought the United States was headed in the wrong direction, and only 40 percent thought it was headed in the right direction...
...Polls show most Americans favor universal health care, increased spending on public education, a rise in the minimum wage, a crackdown on corporate crime and pollution, and nuclear disarmament...
...Right after toppling Saddam Hussein, Bush was at 75 percent in most polls...
...And some big business Republicans may choose Kerry as the more dependable steward of the empire...
...Others are ideologues, who despise liberals and are infatuated with the prowess of the Pentagon...
...Bush has already extended the duty of thousands of soldiers who were expecting to come home soon, and he has denied standard requests for retirement from those who have already put in their time...
...Barring another terrorist attack or the apprehension of Osama bin Laden or extreme electoral shenanigans, Bush will probably go down to defeat in November...
...They may choose the Vietnam vet instead...
...But it's unlikely that he'll be able to win simply by being Bush's opponent in a referendum on the last four years...
...How things change...
...With a little courage, a Presidential candidate could go beyond the "Beat Bush" bandwagon and ride this populist wave to a better future...
...Phantom weapons of mass destruction and all the hype around them haunt Bush's reputation...
...Maintain current levels: 24 percent...
...I would think American business would jump up and down and welcome what I'm offering...
...As of June 2, according to the Pentagon, 811 U.S...
...Who are these Republicans, and why are they straying...
...John Kerry on his health care proposal...
...Yes, Kerry has distinguished himself from Bush on the environment, on women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, civil liberties, income taxes, and the rights of organized labor...
...But nothing bold comes out of his mouth...
...The old Republican trick of wrapping goodies for the rich in populist paper may be wearing thin...
...Interestingly, with Ralph Nader in the race, the spread was the same, with Nader picking up 3 percent, though almost every other poll shows Nader taking votes from Kerry...
...And the price tag for the war-more than $100 billion a year-has made many Americans balk...
...troops in Iraq...
...The fissures are already noticeable, with Bush losing 8 percentage points among Republicans from April to May, according to the Post...
...The Washington Post On the issue of Palestine/Israel, Kerry has left no distance whatsoever between his position and Bush's...
...And he has "pared earlier proposals to expand college-tuition subsidies and provide aid to state governments, to help achieve the higher priority of halving the federal budget deficit within four years," The Wall Street Journal notes...
...Zogby Poll in May These poll numbers bear out what we have found impressionistically More and more, we are hearing about dyed-in-the-wool Republicans who are going to vote Democratic this year, some for the first time in their lives...
...The Presidency is John Kerry's to lose...
...A plurality of Americans actually want all U.S...
...Zogby reported 64 percent disapproving of Bush's handling of the war and only 36 percent approving...
...A majority of Americans (54 percent) still disapprove of his handling of economic policy, according to a Washington Post/ABC poll in May...
...They prefer the bracing water of Nader or the Greens...
...Nader, who is polling anywhere between 2 and 7 percent, is likely to recede as a factor in this election, however...
...Some of these are habitual, reflexive Republicans who, as a matter of course, vote party line...
...As John McCain tartly remarked, "I fondly remember a time when real Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility...
...And the number of people who favor withdrawing troops has been steadily rising over the last few months...
...Isolationist Republicans are appalled by Bush's lust for foreign conquest...
...few people on the left will be able to withstand it...
...What Kerry fails to note is that the American public is not only turning against Bush, it is seeking progressive solutions...
...The torture scandal dogs him, too...
...Here's how those figures break down: Withdraw all troops: 29 percent...
...The regular reminder at the pumps of how Bush has botched U.S...
...Some moderate Republicans may be put off by his anti-environmental policy and his coziness with the religious right...
...Instead, on some issues, he is content to say, "Me, too...
...Some of them will be in no mood to extend the commander in chief's tour of duty...
...On top of that, the family incomes of 30 percent of the reservists are being depleted, as Anne-Marie Cusac reported in our April issue in her article "An Army of Debt...
...When asked whether Bush deserved to be reelected, only 41.8 percent told Zogby yes, while 53 percent said it was time for someone new...
...As the campaign draws to an end, the tug for Kerry will be extraordinarily powerful...
...In Red States, Kerry and Bush are statistically tied...
...By and large, Kerry seems to feel he can win with the slogan, "I'm not a wacko...
...That may-or may not-be enough to get Kerry elected...
...The polls are clear about what is dragging Bush down: the Iraq War...
...And fiscal Republicans are aghast at Bush's runaway deficits, which exceed $500 billion this year and continue to swell into the out years...
...And despite Bush's synthetic handover of power, there appears to be no end in sight for U.S...
...This increasingly puts him at odds with the American public...
...But it won't be enough to enable him to govern with a mandate for fundamental progressive change...
...Bush is losing the support of independents, especially women, who are put off by his positions on abortion and gay rights and the environment...
...Some of our career soldiers are furious at the way Bush and Rumsfeld waged the Iraq War and bungled the occupation...
...approval, stay the course, and leave the door open for more troops...
...Well, they are not rightwing fundamentalists, that's for sure...
...One of the first economic proposals Kerry unveiled was a tax break for corporations...
...Another 20 percent or so is solid for Bush...
...But Bush seems to be losing support among several other subgroups within the party...
...And, as Kevin Phillips writes elsewhere in this issue, part of Bush's Republican base is beginning to crack...
...Finally, Bush may be losing some support from a traditional stronghold: the military...
...soldiers had been killed in Iraq and 4,982 wounded...
...soldiers to pull out, according to a May Gallup Poll...
...Some fiscal conservatives and isolationists may opt for the flinty Ralph Nader rather than vote for Bush...
...He ought to be able to make the sale by offering people a decent job, an increase in the minimum wage, guaranteed health care, a clean environment, Social Security that is inviolate, and free day care and college education for their children...
...For many liberals and progressives, that's sufficient...
...Even the economy, which has created more than 900,000 jobs over the last three months, is not helping Bush out dramatically...
...Maybe it wasn't clever of Bush to say the nation owes Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "a debt of gratitude...
...They have loved ones on the line for no good reason, and they have to worry every day whether their soldiers will return home alive and whole...
...When voters don't like the direction the country is going in, they are not likely to want to "stay the course," as Bush urges them to do...
...The financial hardship alone of this war is devastating to thousands of families...
...Send more troops: 25 percent...
...Bush can count on this 35 to 40 percent, no matter what...
...CBS had his Iraq approval rating at only 30 percent, and other pollsters had it at around 41 percent but showed his Iraq numbers plummeting in May...
...In a head-to-head race with John Kerry, Bush lost in the Zogby poll 47 to 42...
...And many military families are distraught...
...Bush's political standing has been weakened by an erosion in support among independents...
...A Zogby poll, conducted in mid-ay showed Bush's job approval rating down to a record low of 42 percent, a drop of six points from April...
...The polls have been trending against Bush for some time now...
...He vows to keep 138,000 troops there, and he says he'll send more if the generals request it...
...And he has offered a peek at a vision of a more multilateralist foreign policy, one that concerns itself with human rights and international law...
...Get U.N...
...By alienating the rest of the world, Bush may be limiting their ability to make profits in the long term...
...For a party that had as one of its cornerstones the balanced budget, this is an apostasy...
...And as he drifts further toward the middle, he is desperately trying to assure the Washington establishment that he can run the show better than Bush can...
Vol. 68 • July 2004 • No. 7
