Posted on 04/19/2003 4:20:39 PM PDT by MadIvan
Brandi, the younger sister of Private Jessica Lynch, begins her own military training this summer. In Wirt County, West Virginia, where America's most famous ex-POW will soon return home, there are not many career alternatives.
In the Lynch family's home town of Palestine, the one surviving small business, the "Whatnot Shop", scrapes by on sales of ceramic roosters, third-hand sewing machines and a selection of stuffed animals. Like many other businesses in the United States, it isn't hiring. Unemployment in the area is well over double the national average, which is already high. The logging and construction industries are in steep decline. Wirt County, with a population of 6,000, is all but bankrupt. Never mind Baghdad, say the locals. What price the economic reconstruction of rural West Virginia?
Last week, similar sentiments were being heard across the United States, as senior Democrats cheerfully emerged from their bunkers after months of edgy silence over the war in Iraq. Robert Byrd, the senator for West Virginia, even travelled home to underline a point notoriously made at the expense of President George W Bush's father, before an election 12 years ago: "It's the economy, stupid."
In New Hampshire, where the first presidential primaries for 2004 will take place early next year, Richard Gephardt, the labour unions' candidate, let it be known he was "furious" at the shaky state of America's finances. The House of Representatives minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, said that now the war is over, Americans would "get back to round-the-dinner-table issues", such as jobs and affordable health care, during the coming campaign.
President Bush has splendid postwar approval ratings of 71 per cent, his highest for a year. Yet his opponents appear remarkably chipper. They believe they have acted out this election script before, and won handsomely. In the summer of 1991, President Bush's father emerged from a successful war against Saddam Hussein with ratings that the Iraqi dictator himself would have been proud to engineer.
During the subsequent 16 months, Bush senior dropped a record 57 points in the polls, bottomed out at 32 and was routed in the presidential race by Bill Clinton, a little-known politician from Arkansas. As the "liberator of Kuwait" lost by six million votes, the famous "It's the economy" slogan entered into political folklore.
As conventional wisdom has it, the first President Bush lost the peace because unemployment was rising, economic growth was sluggish and federal deficits were alarming. With his eyes on the desert horizon, the commander-in-chief had failed to attend to, or even notice, the most important battlefield in American politics: the domestic economy.
One week or so after the end of his own successful - and presumably definitive - encounter with Saddam, George W Bush also presides over an economy suffering from rising unemployment, sluggish growth and even more alarming deficits than 12 years ago. Gleeful opponents describe the similarities as "eerie". The temptation to draw parallels is forgivable, especially for an opposition yet to score a serious victory over the President since the attacks on the World Trade Center. But it would be a mistake to assume that history is about to repeat itself. For one thing, as Saddam discovered, the Bush family tends to learn from its mistakes.
An internal memo recently circulated to Republicans reads: "2003 is not 1991. Focus on jobs . . . shape the economic debate." Last week in the White House Rose Garden, President Bush gave the first of a series of speeches promoting a tax cut package worth a minimum of $550 billion. This measure, claims the White House, would create 1.4 million new jobs, if brought immediately into effect.
Later the President was in St Louis, giving the same message. Over the next two weeks, 26 Administration officials will deliver speeches on the economy across the United States. Republican Senators balking at the prospect of an even higher federal deficit have been told that the President will play "hardball" to achieve his tax-cut. This White House knows how to be relentless.
The measures will take time to work, if indeed they work at all. As Anne Applebaum pointed out in these pages last week, America's economy is undeniably in bad shape. The stock market is down by almost 30 per cent from when the President took office. A budget surplus has turned into a deficit of $400 billion.
Two million jobs have been lost. Economic growth between 2000 and 2002 was the lowest for a three-year period since - yes - the time of the first Gulf War. But no one will be able to accuse this President of blithely ignoring the problem.
President Bush can also rely on his political adviser, Karl Rove, who has earned a reputation for wrongfooting the President's opponents. Mr Rove is the senior adviser to the President in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. He is widely credited with masterminding the success of the Republican Party during last autumn's mid-term elections, when President Bush, on the verge of war with Iraq, rallied the patriotic vote in swing states across America.
In the coming months, Mr Rove's strategic mission is to drive home the message that, in the wake of September 11, and pace 1992, "it's not just the economy, stupid". As President Bush began his tax tour, Mr Rove told American newspaper editors: "When this war ends, we will still have a very dangerous enemy in the form of international terrorism. It's not going to be, like, 'Iraq is over. America can withdraw within itself again'."
The first President Bush, even had he wanted to, could not have made the same argument. Two years before Saddam invaded Kuwait, the Berlin Wall had fallen, bringing the Cold War to an end. America had won. The philosopher Francis Fukuyama made his name by suggesting that political history had ended with a resounding victory for liberal democracies. Saddam was a playground bully to be contained. Hardly anyone had heard of Osama bin Laden.
No American thinks like that now. President Bush is, overwhelmingly, the leader they trust on matters of national security, which matters a great deal. With that crucial side of the electoral equation secure, the Bush Administration can devote itself to dealing with what Mr Rove likes to call the question of economic security.
The President has until 2004 to deal with a sliding scale of approval among American voters. According to the latest New York Times poll, just over 79 per cent of voters think he has handled the crisis with Iraq well. Just under three-quarters approve of his handling of the presidency overall. Only 46 per cent believe that he has so far made the right decisions about the nation's economy.
The figures, taken in the round, are very good. But if President Bush is to avoid the calamitous fate of his father, he could do worse than to find some jobs for the neighbours of Private Jessica Lynch.
The 2nd Amendment isn't about sport.
What liberties have you, yourself, been forced to give up to fight terrorism?
Since when is defending the Constitution on a CONSERVATIVE political forum considered "nuts"?
Carpentry, ah. My hubby first began school back in 1987. Then the recession hit, top that with Chicago weather. Now he finally became a journeyman, excellent money, then what happens again, wintertime, again. He is had 4 career changes since 88' and canot earn much and we are in a big city!
The Democrats counting on winning in 2004 just because they won in 1992 are most likely to be, as Daschle would put it, deeply saddened.
Bush will lose more votes from "Soccer Moms" if he vetoes the ban than he will lose from gun owners if he signs it. It is a lose/lose situation for Bush
Best that the bill never sees his desk (which is what I am sure Bush is hoping for).
We'll see.
Amazing that the article never mentions the one thing which delivered our country into Clinton's filthy hands. Despite what the media kept insisting, Perot's support was stolen from Bush. Without the little egomaniac running, Bush would have won easily.
Excellent point!
Tough. You, your newbie neo-pals, GWB and yellow-boy Karl Rove should hear it not only "ad nauseum" but until you puke all over yourselves, or maybe even choke on your puke.
We'll post it wherever we like. If that bothers you go back into whatever hole you crawled out of where second amendment people are called "gun nuts".
Yeah, same goes for the single-issue abortion opponents, and the single-issue illegal immigration opponents, and the single-issue advocates of a smaller federal government, and the...wait...tell me why GWB is a conservative again?
Old Man Bush did have the country behind him after the Gulf War, but when election/campaign time came rolling around I had the sense the Old Man Bush just didn't want to be President again. He didn't have his heart in the campaign. HIS lack of enthusiasm translated ito a lack of enthusiasm for the GOP: for his campaign workers and for his constituents. I think Old Man Bush was just Burned Out. He was VP under Reagan for two terms and he was the Big Cheese for one term.
I know the mantra was, "Its The Economy Stupid!", and maybe I am mis-remembering but the economy isn't why I thought he lost in '92. I thought it was because Perot excited a big chunk of the electorate, and Old Man Bush just bored the crowd, and Clinton won with his wanker staying out-of-sight.
I voted for Perot because Old Man Bush didn't want to be president - Perhaps Old Man Bush did lose because of the economy, but I am not convinced (although Perot did pound on Bush because of the deficits)
Its interesting for me to remember that Newt and the GOP back then co-opted Perot's list of priorities and relabeled them as the "Contract with America". I may not know the whole story, but I like the "Little General" more than I like Bush 41.
I don't think W. will let the "Economy" be his downfall....and now its the 'RATs who have to worry about a 3rd party spoiler. The 'RATs are split right now - and if they're licking their chops anticipating the self-distruction of this President Bush, then they will find that they have ignored the signs that foreshadow their own defeat in 2004.....(watch Rev. Al Sharpton)
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