To seize back the agenda, Bush grabs the bullhorn

CSM ^ | December 08, 2005

[Candor7]

" 'Initially, I thought the speeches might even work for him,' says John Zogby"

John Zogby recently outed himself as a democrat and is against the war in Iraq. He spreads MSM propaganda and these does polls to see how many people believe the propaganda. He's a workin it from both ends. What a laugh!

I'll never believe another Zogby poll , ever!

ZOG GO BY!

[SaxxonWoods]

Holding a successful election will be far more than a "mixed bag." There is a slow movement, even in the MSM, toward positive stories on Iraq. That's because they know they can't be caught totally on the wrong side of history, or they will lose even more cred with the public, a public that is slowly being awakened to a good economy, and progress in Iraq, which will be reinforced by the election, and when withdrawals start in the spring.

The Dems are desperately positioning to take credit for the withdrawals, and to paint victory as defeat. I don't think it will work, but it is their only shot, now that they have invested in defeat, following their idiot leftist base.

"Dean screams, Dems cream in jeans." "Like a Murtha to the flame."

[jmc1969]

As I said before the more votes Allawi gets the better for Iraq long term.

[shrinkermd]

I am glad to see this; however, I have some complaints.

Yesterday I watched the President's speech in NC. He had trouble and stumbled several times with the wording. Nothing wrong with the content but those writing the speech did not write it for the President. The President is most effective in his normal speech pattern of short, pithy sentences with inflections focused on the end of the sentences. Whoever wrote this, wrote it for an MLA professor's lecture.

Also, who really vets these speeches? Someone must be able to spell "semantics." I note the President periodically refers to "drilling in the Arctic Wild Life Refuge.." This is a losing proposition where many are secret nature worshipers. The proper wording would be "..drilling in federal lands in Alaska..." He might be criticized but no one reads the NYT or WaPo who really matters.

Referring to the "Arctic Wildlife Refuge" is akin to proposing a Planned Parenthood kiosk on the Notre Dame Campus--bound to result in in disjunctive emotions. Don't we have any psychologists or others vetting these speeches? This is only one example. There are others but it is time for me to eat dinner.

[bnelson44]

Yesterday I watched the President's speech in NC. He had trouble and stumbled several times with the wording. Nothing wrong with the content but those writing the speech did not write it for the President.

Or he didn't read it and tried to run off an outline, which is how it looked to me. Anyway the result was the MSM ignored it.

[swheats]

I was responding more to your expectations and your warning to others not to expect much.

"good outcome = Republican
bad outcome = Democrat

Is silly and does not allow one to open one's eyes to objective reasoning."

Reasoning...we're talking about democrats and their hatred of this president. There is no reasoning

[mlc9852]

He's much better at speeches now.

[mlc9852]

I'm watching him on C-Span 2 and can't understand why this isn't being covered by MSM? It sounds like a pretty major speech to me. I know it's the Council on Foreign Relations but I think it's a speech the American people need to hear.

[swheats]

It's better for the MSM to interpret what he said instead of allowing citizens to hear for themselves. Hoodwinked comes to mind.

That's what I find so frustrating. Bush's ratings are so low because of his lack of access to the American public.

Yet he continues to do speeches to a very small group and depend on the media to disseminate his message.

[BlueStateDepression]

My question is why did he ever put it down in the first place?

[mlc9852]

You are exactly right. He should be giving the speech on national TV.

[Soul Seeker]

At a congressional retreat last week, after President Bush had delivered the first of four major speeches laying out his plan for Iraq, the message to White House officials was clear: Do more to sell your successes.

You know...it's one thing for those of us that sell his policies, largely cause we believe in them, on a day to day basis throughout the year to say this. Unless you are one of the few elected Republicans that does as well, I don't care to hear this attitude from these weak kneed poll sniffing cowards. It's their job to sell and defend as well, and they've been AWOL.

But under the best circumstances, I didn't see the president getting back to 50 percent [job approval], and now the Democrats are starting to galvanize around the same themes regarding Iraq, if not immediate withdrawal, then staged withdrawal, enough so that they are where the national consensus is."

Tsk. Zogby, maybe you should read the WAPO? they seem to disagree with your anaylsis of where the public is. I do agree the Dems are drifting to your sympathetic outlook as to what would make the lives of the terrorists easier.

But, he adds, the president can't stop working the bully pulpit on Iraq, because otherwise he could get buried by the issue. Ditto with the economy, as top administration officials fanned out this week to point out positive developments

Well, at least Zogby and I agree on this. He can't let up. Every day he needs to be speaking of both.

Indeed, as the White House looks ahead to the second year of its second term, and specifically to next month's State of the Union address, there may be signs that Bush's slide in the polls has stopped, if not turned around. Political analyst Charles Cook notes that the new Time magazine poll, with Bush at 41 percent job approval, is the third major poll in a row above 40 - after a nearly three-week stretch with only one out of 12 polls showing the president above 40.

Was RASS the poll they refer to here with him above? because RASS is one of the few worth giving a look.

According to Mr. Zogby's own latest polling, which shows the president at 41 percent approval, Bush has won back some independents and Republicans who had left him for a while.

Zogby polls are a joke. And anyone with a lick of sense could have foretold he'd get an increase from his base, since it was among his base he'd suffered loss.

But there's a risk in giving speech after speech, says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an expert on political rhetoric and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "At some point," she says, "they become nonnewsworthy and, as a result, the story becomes, why is he giving all these speeches?"

ooh, let's convince the president to stop giving speeches that lift him up and cause the Dems to scatter. Think he'll fall for this? nah.

So far, she says, it's too soon to tell if Bush's jawboning strategy is having an impact. Job-approval ratings don't really tell the story. Polling is needed to test specifically whether Bush's messages are resonating.

That's not what the simple minded pundits were stating three weeks ago.

[highlander_UW]

President Bush should take advantage of the vote to require updates and benchmarks by having a 15-30 minute video presentation that shows the REAL story of what is going on in Iraq...both good and bad. He can present each segment and then they can have 5 minute or so pieces on schools being opened, on the new Iraqi government, the training process of Iraqi troops, general infrastructure being put in place, the oil fields and production etc. Make the networks play it each and every week. If they abrogate their responsibility to show the true story I say use this requirement to jam it down the throats of the MSM...and educate the American population (and the world) at the same time.