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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated

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To: LindyBill who started this subject	9/24/2003 11:54:20 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (4) of 793759

Josh Marshall's comments tonight on Bush's falling poll numbers look just about right to me. Credibility and trust are the items in trouble and, if it gets much worse, it could get a great deal worse. (September 24th, 2003 -- 10:29 PM EDT // link) Presidents can do a lot worse than 49% approval a year before they face reelection -- as NBC is reporting for President Bush tonight. In fact, I'm pretty sure the last two presidents who won second terms (Reagan in 1983 and Clinton in 1995) were doing worse a year out. But the key here is that the president's numbers seem to be in something close to free-fall. His approval ratings have fallen roughly 30 percentage points in four months. And both Reagan and Clinton were on the rebound at the time. Even with all the context which may be fairly provided (like the fact that the 70+ numbers were part of a post-war spike), the president's rapid descent is undeniable. And it's not clear he's hit bottom. I'm hearing many conservatives say now that the White House political office is off their game. But I see no real evidence of this. The problem is more fundamental. For quite some time this White House has functioned like a heavily leveraged business, an overextended investor that suddenly gets a margin call. To extend the business metaphor, the White House has been surviving not on profits but expectations of future profits or, in other words, credibility. The White House has been able to get the public to sit tight with a lot of objectively poor news (a poor economy, big deficits, bad news from abroad) on the basis of trust. But a combination of the manifest incompetence of the planning for post-war Iraq and the dishonesty of the build-up for the war have become increasingly difficult to defend or deny. And that's struck a grave blow against the president's credibility. Credibility of course is unitary. And the erosion has ricocheted from foreign policy to domestic policy and back again in escalating fashion. Suddenly the White House's explanations for why the country has fallen back into half trillion dollar deficits are ringing hollow. As we've seen recently, a hollowed-out company can push along for some time so long as no one takes a good look at the books or calls in their loans. But when it happens the fall can be dramatic. -- Josh Marshall

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