Job No. 1 for Bush
The first two months of 2004 will be remembered as the moment Americans shifted their view of Bush's economic stewardship. The politicians' private polls and the public polls tell the same story: Americans who began to have faith in the economic recovery a few months ago are now losing it.
The startling thing is that an election that seemed on track for the Bush team just a few months ago has, thanks to new economic perceptions, gone haywire. According to Pew Research Center polls, economic confidence grew steadily between autumn and the beginning of the year. The proportion of Americans rating economic conditions as "excellent" or "good" rose from 21 percent in September to 43 percent in the first days of 2004. That was good news for Bush.
But the Pew surveys found that the proportion of Americans giving the economy positive ratings dropped steadily during the heat of the Democratic primaries through January and February. It was down to 31 percent at the end of last month.
Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said the findings were consistent with private polls and suggested several factors that came together to dent the public's confidence. Sluggish job growth "takes its toll after a while" and the "continuing bad news about jobs undercuts the other economic indicators." In political terms, the unemployment rate is playing second fiddle to the job-creation numbers.
In addition, "the collective effect of the press covering outsourcing" has made it a powerful issue that now comes up regularly in focus groups. Rising health care, transportation and education costs, she said, have further undermined Americans' sense of well-being. "Nobody feels like their incomes are going up," she said.
That is why the Bush campaign will be spending so much of its vast treasury in the coming weeks on advertising to change what has become, from its point of view, a dismal dynamic. No wonder Bush went on the air yesterday with a new ad attacking Kerry on taxes and the Patriot Act. In one of his positive ads, Bush declares: "I know exactly where I want to lead this country." Perhaps. But even more than ads, Bush needs a sustained period of job growth, and soon, if he expects voters to go with him.
washingtonpost.com |
