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.
Uh, didn't he just sign the partial birth abortion ban? The one Bill Clinton vetoed? How many Dem presidents do you think would sign that?
Two more words: John McCain.
Since when is defending the Constitution on a CONSERVATIVE political forum considered "nuts"?Some Republicans think that anyone who votes according to how well a candidate supports the Constitution is a "single issue" voter. However, they are just as guilty. Their single issue is winning the election. Nothing else matters. They think that there may be a slight chance that once their candidate gets in office he or she will actually do something for the conservative cause. Unfortunately, that strategy has already given us huge increases in the size and scope of government.
Uh, no.
If conservatives have learned nothing since 1992, the answer is "yes."
Many Republican voters stayed home in 1992 because GHW Bush failed their purity test by breaking his "no new taxes" pledge. If conservatives refuse to vote for GW Bush because he fails a similar test (assault weapons ban, amnesty, whatever) then they will only have themselves to blame for President Hillary or President Dickie G.
If Bush loses in 2004 because conservatives don't believe he is "conservative" enough to earn thier precious vote, they better not rear their holier-than-thou heads around here. The mother of all flames will be coming from this direction and I will probably end up being banned.
I have no patience with the purists who would rather usher in the imperial reign of Her Royal Hillaryness than hold their nose and vote for a Republican less "pure" than they.
Where in my post did I say I would support a democrat? If you weren't a woman, those would be fightin' words. ; )
What helped kill the economy in after DS was the violation of "read my lips" "no new taxes" pledge. "W" is not making that mistake, although the Dims will huff and puff and strain mightily to get him to do so. Instead he's trying to help get the economy moving by cutting taxes. If it was a Dim in office, they'd be trying to raise spending, even more than they raised taxes.
Democrats have an extraordinarily "weak bench".
Classic British understatement there, Ivan.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.