September 25, 2003 The Tipping Point
Bush Hits the 40s
(posted Sept. 25 12:45 AM ET)
It’s just barely, but it counts.
The NBC/WSJ poll released yesterday has Dubya’s approval rating at 49%.
What does this mean? Two key points.
First, as noted here earlier this week, the media coverage will now turn negative.
It has already been moving in that direction.
But now, the media cannot preface Bush’s name with the word “popular” for the foreseeable future.
And that changes everything – the substance and tone of every article about Bush.
Of course, 49% is not a fatal number. This could theoretically be turned around.
But it won't be turned around with Bush trademark stubborn arrogance.
Only with policy shifts that the public is asking for.
That's where the second key point comes in.
The GOP is sure to take the wrong message from this poll.
The Bushies will likely look at this and say to themselves:
"This is a natural decline, simply returning to the 50-50 Nation of 2000.
"And if we stay the course on Iraq and taxes, and apologize for nothing, Iraq and the economy will get better, and we’ll have an insane amount of campaign cash. So we’ll be fine."
This is only half-right, and not where it counts.
It’s true that 50-50 Nation is back, if it ever really left.
The approval-disapproval breakdown by party in the poll (stats from NBC Nightly News) is very similar to the Bush-Gore breakdown in 2000:
NBC/WSJ Poll
DEMS
Approve – 16%
Disapprove – 78%
INDIES
Approve – 46%
Disapprove – 44%
GOPers
Approve – 85%
Disapprove – 11%
Election 2000
DEMS
Bush – 11%
Gore – 86%
INDIES
Bush – 47%
Gore – 45%
GOPers
Bush – 91%
Gore – 8%
The Dems have almost fully come home, and the indies are split again (and the GOP support is a touch soft).
That's 50-50 Nation. But it’s not the full story.
The sharp poll drop following the $87B speech indicates that rejection of Bush policy is also a huge factor.
In fact, the poll also showed it’s not just Iraq, but tax cuts too.
When asked where the $87B should come from, poll respondents said (also from NBC Nightly News):
Cancel tax cut for wealthy – 56%
Reduce spending -- 13%
Borrow -- 12%
(UPDATE Sept. 25 10:45 AM ET -- Today's WSJ breaks down the "reduce spending" number as 7% for "forego new Medicare prescription drug benefit" and 6% for "cut spending on education, health care or environment.")
That’s not just Dems. NBC noted that one-third of GOPers wanted the tax cut shelved.
This poll is a cry for policy changes. But Bush won’t see it that way. He can’t.
Bush would unleash a firestorm from his base (and the pundits) if he reneged on tax cuts. He has staked his entire presidency on them.
And yesterday, LO discussed how the neocon vision dictates his unilateral course on the occupation.
So instead of listening to the people, the Bushies and the Right will actively miss the point.
Just yesterday, Tom DeLay trotted out the tired Dems-are-with-the-terrorists line.
Which willfully ignored that the Bushies have been pushing that line all month, to no effect.
Also yesterday, over at Fox News, Brit Hume and his daily pundit crew tried to push the argument that the media has a “bad news bias” that distorts the picture in Iraq.
Whatever merits that point may have, it misses the point that US soldiers are dying in an occupation that doesn’t make sense to many Americans.
But expect more arguments that miss the point.
Because the GOP won’t, and can’t, address head on what is troubling the people.
That’s why, barring an unexpected explosion of US job growth, it will be very difficult for Bush to stop this slide.
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September 24, 2003 PERMALINK
The UN Speech: Digging A Hole
(posted Sept. 24 12:45 AM ET)
We were right. You were wrong. Give us money.
-- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show 9/23/03
One of the oldest adages is: when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Iraq is now one big hole of daily death and enormous cost.
Bush is in it because of his arrogant, unilateral ways. He’d dig himself out if he ended them.
He won’t.
From yesterday’s NY Times:
"There's a feeling that you have to assert that the United States is still in control, if nothing else for domestic concerns," said a senior administration official…
…"We're going into an election year and the president has to project an image of power and authority," the official added.
But wait. That doesn’t quite make sense.
Polls have consistently shown Americans crying out for Bush to change gears.
In the latest Pew Poll, 70% want the UN to play a “significant role in establishing a stable government in Iraq.”
And, even more surprising, 51% would support “giv[ing] up some control of military decisions in Iraq to the United Nations.” [emphasis added]
In turn, it is unlikely that domestic political concerns are driving Bush's bull-headed policy.
Instead, it’s the neocon vision of Pax Americana on which the whole war was predicated, that prevents Bush from making the obvious strategic shifts.
What domestic political concerns did dictate was the tone of yesterday’s UN speech.
The Bushies must have known that the UN and its members would hate whatever he did. (Which they did.)
But he had to do his best to make it look, to Americans, like he was asking for help nicely.
That way when the help doesn’t come, they can try, at least implicitly, to blame France.
So there were no direct insults, no overt mocking of the UN as a “debating society.”
But neither were there any actual concessions that would lead to significant international support.
Will it work? Extremely doubtful.
Americans want more than anything else to curtail the steady stream of murders of our troops. Results, not excuses.
That reality doesn’t seem to have sunk in deep enough among the Bushies yet.
Again from yesterday’s NYT:
…some administration officials say they are experiencing the unpleasant sensation of not feeling in control of events.
"I think there is a sense of being under assault and not being able to reclaim the upper hand in a way that seemed so effortless in the past," said one Bush adviser.
In the past, it was effortless to squelch dissent because there was 9/11, and then the run-up to war.
Now, the Bushies are without a (real or perceived) immediate crisis to use as a hammer.
Rehashed speeches describing failing policies won’t do the trick. At this point, only actual success will.
Yet the White House is doing all it can to prevent that from happening.
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