Clinton ROCKS!! Thx for link, tejek. Repugs are getting nervous:
Republicans Worry About Bush Poll Numbers
30 minutes ago
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With President Bush (news - web sites)'s
poll numbers dropping, many of his fellow Republicans are uneasy about
the state of the U.S. economy, rising budget deficits, and the U.S.
military operation in Iraq (news - web sites).
Some believe his job approval rating, which
slid to 52 percent in a recent CNN/USA Today
poll, the lowest since before the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks, is only a temporary setback
and will rebound if the economy continues to
recover and Iraq stabilizes.
"I think he's long a way from being in any kind
of serious trouble," said former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich, a prominent Republican voice.
Others believe the president needs to go on the offensive and fight back
against attacks from Democrats vying for the 2004 presidential
nomination who appear to have found a voice in contesting Bush's Iraq
policy and reliance largely on tax cuts to revive the economy.
"The White House needs to get back on the offensive and talk about
some ideas and policies," said a senior Republican strategist in
Washington, who asked to remain unidentified.
The economy's consistent inability to add new jobs has fueled much of
the worry among Republicans, particularly members of Congress who
are getting an earful about it in their home districts.
The U.S. economy has lost close to 3 million jobs since Bush took office
in January 2001, a situation the president blames on a recession under
way when he began his term, the Sept. 11 attacks, corporate scandals
and Iraq war jitters.
A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Sunday also
showed that a majority of Americans disapprove of Bush's request to
Congress for an additional $87 billion to fund military and reconstruction
efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan (news - web sites) over the next year. Six
in 10 of those polled said they did not support the proposal, the Post
said.
A sense that the United States does not have a firm command over the
situation in postwar Iraq is adding to Republican concerns, with daily
guerrilla attacks on U.S. troops, and Bush's failure to get more
international help for Iraq after alienating some members of the U.N.
Security Council during the bitter pre-war debate.
CHANGE IN IRAQ RHETORIC
The White House position on Iraq is that it is now the central front in the
war on terrorism -- a change in rationale from when the war was about
weapons of mass destruction. Bush is emphasizing that it is better to
fight the militants over there rather than in the United States.
"You can't negotiate with these people, you can't try to talk sense to
these people. The only way to deal with them is to find them and bring
them to justice," Bush told reporters on Thursday.
Some Republicans are concerned Bush seems to be spending an
inordinate amount of time raising money for his 2004 re-election
campaign race, lowering his profile from commander in chief to solicitor
in chief and leaving him more open to Democratic assault.
Bush has been to 20 fund-raising events in 12 states and Washington
since mid-June and has raised more than $60 million, on his way to a
goal of $170 million for a Republican primary campaign for which he has
no challengers.
"He is spending too much time raising money. The goal is unbelievably
high," said one prominent Republican. Others are starting to complain
about the multiple phone calls they are getting seeking contributions.
Gingrich said Bush is in a strong position more than a year before the
November 2004 election. He pointed out that two Republican
predecessors, the president's father George Bush and Ronald Reagan
(news - web sites), were behind their opponents just half a year before
the November election but ended up defeating them.
"George H.W. Bush was behind Michael Dukakis by 19 points in May of
1988. Reagan was behind Walter Mondale in the spring of 1984. There
are cycles in a presidency. George W. Bush has had a longer period of
positive support than any president in modern history," he said.
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