Blow For Bush
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Public confidence in the president’s handling of homeland security has been damaged by the testimony of former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke to the 9/11 panel this week, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll.
By Brian Braiker
Richard Clarke’s charge that George W. Bush largely ignored the Al Qaeda threat before the September 11 attacks has dealt a sharp blow to the president’s ratings on a crucial issue. According to the latest NEWSWEEK poll, the percentage of voters who say they approve of the way the president has handled terrorism and homeland security has slid to 57 percent, down from a high of 70 percent two months ago. The survey was conducted after Clarke, a former counterterrorism chief in both the Bush and Clinton administrations, testified to the 9/11 commission on Wednesday. Still, the president’s overall approval rating remains steady at 49 percent and Bush remains neck and neck with presumptive Democratic Party nominee Senator John Kerry.
It was a week of difficult news for the Bush campaign: Gasoline prices hit a record high; stocks plummeted; predictions about Medicare's future were bleak; Washington’s tepid response to Israel’s killing of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin drew international fire and prompted fears of anti-U.S. retaliation. Then Clarke, whose book “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror,” accuses the Bush administration of not treating terrorism as an urgent priority before the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, repeated his charges in testimony before the commission investigating them. With the president’s leadership in the war on terror the centerpiece of his re-election campaign, Bush saw drops in his approval ratings on both terrorism and Iraq. According to the poll, 44 percent of all voters approve of his handling of the war, whereas 50 percent disapprove (up from 39 percent disapproving at the end of last year). And more voters say Bush’s handling of postwar Iraq makes them less likely to vote for him (42 percent) than say it makes them more likely to support him (34 percent).
Although exactly half of the American public has paid at least some attention to Clarke’s allegations, only a quarter of those who have been following the story say they see Clarke as a selfless public servant. Fifty percent suspect Clarke has some personal or political agenda, while another 25 percent don’t know what to make of his accusations. By a margin of 61 percent to 34 percent, Americans feel that, overall, the Bush administration has taken the terror threat seriously. The numbers are the reverse for Bush’s predecessor: 65 percent are critical of how seriously they believe the Clinton administration took the threat. Reaction to Clarke was split along party lines with a vast majority of Republicans (84 percent) rejecting the idea that the Bush administration failed to take the threat of terror as seriously as they should have. Fifty-eight percent of registered Democrats believe the Bush administration has not done everything it should have. Overall, 17 percent of Americans said that the Clarke testimony has made them feel less favorable towards the president and nearly half (44 percent) of them feel that he should testify in public. When asked to consider the alternative to Bush, voters were unsure if Kerry was someone they could trust to make the right decisions in an international crisis: 43 percent say yes, 39 percent no, 18 percent aren’t sure.
Bush’s overall approval rating remain statistically unchanged at 49 percent and in a three-way hypothetical election between Bush, Kerry and independent candidate Ralph Nader, the results were the same as in last week’s NEWSWEEK poll: 45 percent for Bush, 43 percent for Kerry and 5 percent for Nader. If Nader is removed from the picture, the race remains a statistical tie, with 48 percent for Kerry, 47 percent for Bush. With Kerry campaigning in Michigan and Bush promoting tax cuts this week, the race also focused more on the economy—a crucial issue on which more than half (54 percent) of Americans now disapprove of Bush’s performance. Bush is weak overall on domestic issues: 60 percent disapprove of his performance on “jobs and foreign competition” (just 28 percent approve); 58 percent disapprove of his handling of Medicare (up from 50 percent in February); 49 percent disapprove of his tax policies (43 percent approve); and on education 47 percent approve (41 percent disapprove).
For the NEWSWEEK poll, Princeton Survey Research Associates interviewed 1,002 adults aged 18 and older March 25 and March 26 by telephone. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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