Posted on 06/29/2005 9:18:29 PM PDT by Nascardude
Wake up, Mr. President: Every day is Election Day One of the fortunate ways in which this Bush is better than his father is his commitment to winning the presidency and then to getting reelected. While the father seemed to regard politics as an unpleasant duty and saw campaigning as something one had to do every four years, like it or not, the son appeared to revel in meeting the voters and making his case to the people.
His determination in holding fast to his policies while aggressively persuading the nation that they were the right ones was a welcome surprise after his father’s ambivalence about taking to the stump.
But now that he his reelected, he seems to have abandoned politics and retreated into government. Where is he? Where is the vaunted machine he assembled that humbled the best the Democrats had to offer? Where is Rove? Where is Hughes? Where are yesterday’s gods?
The latest Zogby poll highlights the disrepair into which the Bush image has fallen. With his job approval down to 44 percent (and in the 40s in all other polls) and his ratings on Iraq, Social Security, the economy et al. down as well, Bush is in big trouble.
It would be OK if he had just failed to make his case, but one senses that he isn’t really trying. After two months of vigorous stumping to sell his Social Security ideas, which proved to be a nonstarter, he looks as though he has withdrawn into the comfortable quarters of the Oval Office to man his desk rather than win the public.
In modern American democracy, every day is Election Day. Every week, every day, a new poll comes out judging the president’s performance and popularity. Our polling obsession makes our presidential system much more akin to a parliamentary one. When an incumbent president’s job-approval ratings sink below 50 percent, he becomes like a British prime minister who has just lost a vote of confidence in parliament. Unlike his Anglo equivalent, he needn’t resign, but if his ratings don’t improve he might as well leave for all the good he can do.
An incumbent who is bleeding with ratings under 50 attracts the sharks, who impose their own agenda on his administration, and invites defections from his own party, compromising even his control of Congress. As his low ratings breed even lower ones, he comes to embody two metaphors that come from the Nixon administration: He twists slowly in the wind — a helpless, pitiful giant.
It was thus with Bill Clinton in the aftermath of his 1994 defeat, when he had to tell the media that he was still relevant, so obvious was his powerlessness. And it threatens to become this way with George Bush unless the president wakes up and realizes that the American presidency is a job you have to win each and every day to govern with power.
Now, with Rehnquist’s health at such risk, Bush may have to make a Supreme Court appointment when he does not have the political clout to make it stick. He can’t get his Social Security program unstuck except by surrendering the initiative to Republicans bent on compromise and Democrats scenting vulnerability.
He still has a rubber-stamp majority in the House, but for how long? And in the Senate, the McCain-Snowe-Collins-Chafee axis, occasionally joined by GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (S,C.), George Voinovich (Ohio), Arlen Specter (Pa.), John Warner (Va.) or Mike DeWine (Ohio), may make Bush’s hold on that body precarious at best.
All this harm and hurt could be avoided if Bush began to show up for work again. He needs to resume his one-a-day policy announcements he used in the spring of 2004 to bolster his ratings as Iraq burned. He has to take strong public positions and use them to make his ratings rise again.
Bush has all the tools of incumbency, control of Congress and an excellent staff well versed in such things. What seems to be lacking is a sense that he still holds elective, not appointive, office and that he will lose power, although keep the position, if he doesn’t pay more attention to polls and popularity.
Morris is the author of Rewriting History, a rebuttal of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) memoir, Living History.
And I tell Dick Morris to go back to bed.
Even Dick Morris is right sometimes. This is one of those times.
The Bush Whitehouse needs a war room. They need to crack the whip over their own party, to insist that they defend their president and go toe-to-toe with the seditious rats.
They need to wield their power. No more New Tone for Republican turn coats and sissy marys.
This from the man who convinced Clinton to be in perpetual campaign mode for 8 years.
...and of course for Clinton it worked. There is a difference, however, between campaigning and governing. Bush is working on governing, but the media is geared for covering campaigns, so it's difficult for the White House to get their message across, what with the MSM not interested in the issues of governance.
He's far from perfect, but even if W were another Washington he'd get little done with this bunch in the Senate, particularly.
You don't ever get out of campaign mode...you don't skate...you stay on edge...someone has to take over for you and you don't want to leave them moppin' up.
Dick Morris is clueless, Remember... It was Dick Morris who conducted an opinion Poll that led him to believe that Slick Willy should lie about his involvement with Monica Lewinski.
I agree with you, Dude. Everything is electoral politics for Dick Morris. He spent his time in the Clinton administration looking at polls and Slick Willie would formulate policy on that basis.
Have Morris run your election campaign and then put him out to pasture.
I agree with Dick in a way... To say Bush hasn't been working flat out isn't true. He has been trying to sell SS and Dick mentions that. Dick should be saying in the whole piece, stop stumping on SS and talk about the War or something else.
I wonder if DICK "I haven't called an election correctly since 1996" MORRIS has talked to JAMES CARVILLE lately?
"The country is just in a foul mood," says Democratic strategist James Carville. He cites a new poll from Democracy Corps in which 56 percent of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. Democracy Corps provides public opinion polling and strategic advice to Democrats. It was cofounded by Mr. Carville and Stanley Greenberg, who served as President Clinton's pollster.
THE LATEST DEMOCRACY CORPS SURVEY, CONDUCTED JUNE 20-26, FOUND THAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE "NOT DOING VERY WELL," Mr. Greenberg said at a Monitor breakfast.
Some 43 percent of voters said they had warm feelings about the Republican Party, while only 38 percent had positive feelings about Democrats. "Republicans weakened in this poll ... but it shows Democrats weakening more," Greenberg said. He attributes the decline to voters' perceptions that Democrats have "no core set of convictions or point of view."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0629/p02s01-usmb.html
You read correctly, Carville and Greenberg's own poll indicates that, yes, Republican job approval ratings are down (including the President's) BUT the Democrats' ratings are down MORE!!!!
POSITIVE (WARM) FEELINGS
48% (Mean 50.0%) President Bush
43% (Mean 49.8%) the Republican Party
41% (Mean 47.6%) the Republican Congress
38% (Mean 48.9%) the Democrat Party
NOTE: The President and Republicans outpoll the DIMS despite the fact that this poll grossly oversamples Democrats and Democrat-oriented constituency groups, e.g., women, minorities, and adults over the age of 60!
THIS IS WHY THE DIMS AND THEIR MEDIA ENABLERS ARE HYSTERICAL . . . THEY ATTACK THE PRESIDENT RELENTLESSLY AND STILL CAN'T EXCEED HIS APPROVAL RATINGS AT THE POLLS!
I agree completely. When Morris is off, he's way off..........like resolutely predicting (which he did) that Hillary would run in 2004, but when he's right, he hits the bull's eye. This is one of those times.
I worked myself to the bone for Bush's re-election, but have been bewildered ever since the inauguration, wondering where's the beef?!
The president needs to get a second wind and come out swinging, as he did after that first disastrous debate last Fall. Let's hope that he will read Dick Morris's column.
Char :)
I agree, Frist needs to get back to work. And if he can't do it, well.... Find a replacement.
Doesn't matter, Morris is dead on right in this case.
If you run your presidency based on polls, it is sound advice. The last President did so, and we got 9-11. Dick Morris is one of the last people to take advice from.
Republicans would be smart to stay far away from Dick Morris.
Hey Dick, go suck a toe.
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