Focus: Crisis in the White House
Bush under fire
Page 2
" Yet the crisis stretches far beyond the Beltway. The
down-at-heel city of Akron, Ohio, is a long way from the frenzied
media circus of Washington, but the people losing their jobs
there are just as much of a worry to Bush's team. Or they
should be. 'Bush doesn't have a plan, he doesn't even have a
clue,' said David Prentice, 52, who has worked in a Goodyear
factory in Akron for the past 33 years but now fears for his
future.
Ohio is a key battleground state in next year's election. No
Republican President has ever been re-elected without winning
the state. Bush's campaign team knows that and the President
has visited it 11 times so far, but the message from voters like
Prentice is that these tough, blue-collar Republicans are starting
to get angry.
In the past week two more factories around Akron have shut,
costing 140 jobs and laying off many of Prentice's friends. He
had wanted to retire in a few years but now does not dare. 'I
have played by the rules all my life, but now I will try and work
until I'm in my sixties,' he said. 'I just don't know if my factory
will still be here then.'
America is getting poorer. Census figures, released a week ago,
show that 1.7 million more people have dropped below the
poverty line over the past year. Nearly 34.6 million Americans
are living in poverty. The middle classes and the Midwest -
people like Prentice and places like Ohio - have suffered badly.
Income levels for the middle class have dipped 1.1 per cent,
after rising throughout the 1990s. At the same time, Bush's tax
cuts have turned a budget surplus into a predicted deficit of $480
billion for next year. The cumulative deficit over the next decade
is now expected to hit a staggering $1.4 trillion.
This is the so-called 'jobless recovery'. Although many economic
indicators reveal an improvement, heaving the country out of the
after-effects of recession, they fail to create enough
employment.
The bare statistics are shocking; employment growth is the
lowest for any recovery period since labour statistics were first
kept in 1939. More than three million jobs have been lost since
Bush took power in 2001, a record not seen since the days of
President Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression.
Along with Wilsongate, Iraq and WMD, the economy can now
be added to the list of woes on which Bush's administration is
being attacked. Certainly the 10 Democrat candidates battling
for the right to face off against Bush next year have suddenly
realised that capturing the White House is no longer a dream; it
is a real possibility. They have gone on the offensive
mercilessly, including against each other.
'There has been a huge shift in the national atmosphere. It is no
longer considered unpatriotic to ask questions, to be critical,'
Conason said.
Certainly the polls are not helping Bush. Last week statistics
showed that six out of 10 Americans - and four out of 10
Republicans - believe the economy is worse now than when
Bush took over. His approval rating is only 51 per cent, down
from the the high eighties in the wake of 11 September and from
the high sixties at the beginning of the Iraq war.
But most worrying of all is the issue of trust and national
security. Wilsongate, the lack of weapons of mass destruction
and the botched intelligence leading up to the Iraq war have all
harmed the Republicans on issues previously considered their
home territory. It is no coincidence that the one Democrat -
Wesley Clark - who beats Bush in national polls is also a
four-star general with an anti-war position.
So far the Democrats have done well in tapping the growing
anti-war sentiment of the nation. The other front-runner, Howard
Dean, has built much of his support on his anti-war stance.
Party planners know that if they can also tap into other issues,
such as the economy, with equal success, then next year's
election could be there for the taking. 'Bush is really starting to
look like the sort of President he was on 10 September 2001,'
Conason said. 'Very vulnerable.'
But it is not over yet, not by a long shot. Bush's electoral
weapons are still formidable. Last Tuesday - as his staff were
being told to preserve their phone records - Bush himself was in
Chicago on other business. Election business. He held a
12-hour stopover, speaking at two receptions in the city. Each of
the 1,700 supporters who came to see him - and were treated to
a cold sandwich and a 28- minute speech - paid $3,000 for the
privilege. That helped to raise $5.3m in a single day, a personal
record for a President who has already broken all fundraising
records.
There are still 13 months to go until the election. 'A month can
be an eternity in this game,' said Haas and Bush's team is
already preparing its battle plan. The team is expected to raise
between $200m and $250m for its electoral war chest -likely to
be four or five times larger than any Democratic opponent. The
Democratic field is still weak and divided. With 10 candidates
running, only Clark and perhaps Dean have any sort of national
name recognition. It is hard to beat an incumbent President
when you come from nowhere. Bush's approval ratings may be
low, but they are not as low as Clinton's, and even Ronald
Reagan's, sank before they went on to win second terms. The
jobless recovery may finally start to produce jobs; figures
released on Friday indicated the first increase in eight months.
And then, of course, there is Rove; the man with the plan. It has
been a long time since any candidate of Rove's has lost an
election. It is a certainty that he will do anything he can to
continue that winning streak.
At the moment, Bush's team is reeling. It is taking hits. It knows
it now has a fight on its hands. But if there is one thing the Bush
administration knows how to do, it is how to fight.
What commentators say about George W Bush
'Bush and his crew are looking desperate as the Iraq occupation
becomes more of a problem ... Even Republicans on Capitol Hill
are restless over his $87 billion budget request for Iraq ... people
are questioning Bush's credibility over Iraq. They should'
Leader in the Nation
'Bush is in a lot of trouble. I think they know that now. They
could lose this election'
Mel Goodman, senior fellow, Centre for International Policy
'This particular squad of scoundrels is desperate. They are no
longer able to bludgeon dissenters with facts; the justifications
Bush and his co-conspirators used for this pre-emptive war have
been revealed as dissembling, distortion and outright lies'
Columnist Cynthia Tucker, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
'He wasn't involved. The President knows he wasn't involved. It's
simply not true'
Scott McClellan, presidential press spokesman, defending Karl
Rove from leak allegations
'A little cloud of illegality is forming over George W. Bush's
White House. If the President does not act quickly to dissipate
it, he may well be swimming for his political life in the deluge of
accusations that surely will follow'
Leader in The Cleveland Plain Dealer"
guardian.co.uk |
