George W. Bush: Winning Battles But Losing
the War
Huffington Post
John Zogby
December 29, 2005
When George W. Bush took the oath of office in January 2001 he began his
presidency with a strategy that defied history. In short, together with his
closest advisor and strategic architect, Karl Rove, this new president, elected
with less than half the popular vote, would not seek to build a governing a
majority based on moving to the political center to attract moderate
voters.
Instead, he would work overtime to shore up his conservative base and try to
attract additional values voters who did not turn out to vote in the 2000
election.
The strategy seemed strange from the outset. He appeared in many ways
purposely going out of his way to alienate those very voters who comprise the
"vital center" whose support is traditionally viewed as essential for effective
governing. So the early Bush administration rescinded environmental orders by
his predecessor that regulated arsenic levels in drinking water and carbon
dioxide emissions in the air. He withheld money earmarked for non-government
organizations which advocated the use of contraception for poor women. His
Vice-President held secret meetings with energy companies in developing an
agenda and oil-company friendly energy policy.
By September 2001, this president who came to office with 48% of the vote
stood with a 49% positive job rating and a 50% negative rating.
The events of September 11 changed things. Mr. Bush, who rose to the
occasion with genuine concern and appropriate toughness, saw his polling
numbers soar to the high eighties in polls, even higher in the polls of others.
But again, he refused to spend this considerable political capital in building
a genuine governing majority. In effect, his presidency could most aptly be
likened to a metaphor of a bouncing rubber ball, which receives its highest
(and longest lasting) bounce initially, with each subsequent bounce decreasing
in height and longevity.
By the onset of bombing of Baghdad, the president's number were only in the
mid-fifties but rose again in the early days of "shock and awe" to 69%. But by
the end of May, he was back down to 50% and would stay there for six
months.
With the December 15, 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein, Mr. Bush would get
another bump to the mid-fifties, but then again would slip back down to the
high forties, low fifties.
Fortunately, his Democratic opponent, John Kerry, would never rise beyond
48% support in the polls. In re-examining Mr. Kerry's support levels throughout
2004, they resemble the EKG of a dead man – 48% in March, 48% before the
Democratic National Convention in July, 48% after the convention, 48% by Labor
Day, and 48% on election day. A straight line from beginning to end. Kerry
never bonded with his constituency or moderates who were looking for an end of
the war in Iraq. He never gave them either a plan for ending the war nor a
compelling persona to which they could relate.
Mr. Bush won with 50.8% of the vote on the same day that majorities gave him
a negative job performance rating, said he did not deserve to be re-elected,
and saw the country headed on the wrong track. The victory was an historical
anomaly, though Messrs. Bush and Rove did indeed get an additional number of
rural and conservative voters out to the polls.
Ironically, Mr. Bush wanted his presidency to be all about the war in Iraq.
Aside from his motives for going to war, the popularity of his position in
fighting the war on terrorism was seen as pulling up the increasingly negative
numbers who support the war in Iraq. Linking the two would serve the president
well.
Instead, the opposite has occurred. The unpopularity of the war in Iraq not
only is dragging the public's support for this president's fight in the war on
terrorism – now only in the high forties where it was 64% when he was
re-elected – but is also causing a drag on everything the President says
and does. Mr. Bush is no longer seen as truthful and, and in a public mood that
can best be seen as throwing the baby out with the bath water, the public is
piling it on, giving the president low marks in every category we have tested
– the war, foreign policy, the economy, health care, protecting social
security, and even gas prices (which the public understands is something a
president cannot control).
And in our recent year end poll, we find that the president not only gets
low marks from Democrats (11%) and Independents (24%), but has now lost support
from key groups he needed in his re-election: married voters, gun owners,
investors, Catholics, and voters in the so-called Red States (those that he
carried in 2004). In fact, Mr. Bush gets only a 52% positive rating among
Born-Again Christians and only 71% among conservative, much lower numbers than
he needed to win and needs to govern effectively.
Polls taken near the end of the year show an improvement for Mr. Bush, but
the uptick reflects only that he is regaining the support from a portion of his
political base that had been disenchanted.
Barring anything unforeseen, this president will most likely not see the
positive side of 50% again. He banked his presidency and his political capital
on the war in Iraq and is now at the mercy of things on the ground that are
beyond his control.
In short, Mr. Bush appears to have won many political battles along the way,
but he may end up losing the war, both figuratively and literally, as his
presidency behaves like that rubber ball which, at the mercy of gravity,
eventually, inevitably runs out of bounces and rolls down the gutter.
|