These polls were produced by the "US mainstream news
media." Imagine what the truth of the US electorate's
discontent is...
Cragg Hines, Houston Chronicle: Perhaps the worst news
for Bush and the Republicans was a question in the
Washington Post-ABC survey (1,202 adults,
Thursday-Sunday) that asked: "Which of these two
statements comes closest to your own views: A. After
four years of George W. Bush, we need to elect a
president who can set the nation in a new direction.
B. We need to keep the country moving in the direction
Bush has taken us." Same direction got 41 percent, new
direction 57 percent.
Restore the Timeline, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/2441635
March 9, 2004, 9:54PM
GOP learns Bush, gasp, is the problem
By CRAGG HINES
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
Like antsy dogs before an earthquake, some Republicans
sensed trouble. They were barking about the deficit,
chasing their tails over the immigration proposal. A
number had even begun baying about Vice President Dick
Cheney. But when the tremor struck Monday (on the
evening news) and the strong aftershocks continued
Tuesday (in the morning newspapers), the party seemed
astonished at the real cause of their prescient
unease: President Bush.
The White House and Republicans came face-to-face with
a pair of new national surveys that not only show
Democrat John Kerry leading the president in the
horse-race question (For whom would you vote if the
election were held today?) but also find Bush trailing
even more distantly in other key measures of voters'
underlying sentiments. Taken together, the surveys are
much more dire news than the White House had been
predicting and for which it has been struggling to
steel the faithful.
Perhaps the worst news for Bush and the Republicans
was a question in the Washington Post-ABC survey
(1,202 adults, Thursday-Sunday) that asked: "Which of
these two statements comes closest to your own views:
A. After four years of George W. Bush, we need to
elect a president who can set the nation in a new
direction. B. We need to keep the country moving in
the direction Bush has taken us." Same direction got
41 percent, new direction 57 percent. Two percent,
bless their indecisive hearts, expressed no opinion.
That is the type of Bush-specific finding that defies
malinterpretation by the wiliest of White House
spinmeisters. A clear majority of Americans say (at
least at the moment) that they are looking for
something different. It is one growing deficit the
administration will kiss off at its peril. It is a
finding that does not meld well with the overarching
Bush campaign themes of steadiness and staying the
course. What if the course is one on which Americans
do not wish to stay?
The exact same split showed up when the ABC-Washington
Post respondents were asked: "Please tell me whether
the following statement applies to George W. Bush or
not: He understands the problems of people like you."
Yes, 41 percent. No, 57 percent.
These inquiries paint an even worse picture for Bush
and his campaign strategists than his precarious
rating in the new USA Today-CNN-Gallup poll (503
adults, Friday-Sunday), which found 49 percent approve
and 48 percent disapprove of the way the president is
handling his job (a record-tying low for Bush in that
survey).
That same sort of narrow divide was reflected in
response to a question in the Washington Post-ABC
poll: "Overall do you think George W. Bush has done
more to unite the country, or has done more to divide
the country?" Unite, 48 percent; divide 49 percent.
Again, worrisome territory for an incumbent whose
first campaign was based (fraudulently as it has
turned out) on his stated desire to bring us together.
In policy terms, the findings of both surveys buttress
Bush's decision to run as a war president. It's about
all he's got. He can't run as the jobs president, the
education president, the Social Security president,
the health care president. Unfortunately for Bush,
those issues -- and not the fight against terrorism or
the war in Iraq -- are the ones on which most of the
surveys' respondents say they will base their vote in
November.
Thankfully, Bush's exploitive use of scenes from the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in his
campaign-opening television ads was seen as
inappropriate by a majority (54 percent) of the USA
Today-CNN-Gallup respondents. Not that it will have
any effect on Bush's refusal to drop the ads. While
raising even more campaign funds in Texas on Monday,
Bush again defended the use of the images by recalling
how he had gone to Ground Zero. Fine. He can use
pictures of himself standing on the rubble, not the
flag-draped corpse of a fireman being carried from the
wreckage.
Bush also used his trip back home to pounce on what he
called Kerry's attempt "to gut" the budget of the
nation's intelligence services. Kerry proposed in 1995
to cut $1.5 billion from the CIA's appropriation over
five years. How kind of the president to point out a
sensible proposal that would have helped to shut down
what Kerry's campaign called "essentially a slush fund
for defense contractors." Kerry's proposed cut would
have amounted at the time to about 1 percent of the
CIA's annual budget. Some gut.
The best news for Bush came in the USA
Today-CNN-Gallup poll. Fifty-two percent of
respondents said they think that Bush will win the
election. Bush would take that margin in a heartbeat.
Hines is a Houston Chronicle columnist based in
Washington, D.C. (cragg.hines@chron.com)