The Rats have already picked up this ball and are running with it while Mr Bush has said through his economic adviser that getting rid of high-paying American jobs is a good thing. Mr Bush has also said through his illegal Mexican amnesty bill that getting rid of low-paying American jobs is a good thing as well!
That about covers it all, eh?
We will see how well this plays out in the fall.
If he doesn't change the perceptions out there then Bush (and conservatives) will be handing this election to Kerry and the Rats on a silver platter. This issue is a political minefield. And it seems like the Republicans are blundering around through it like a blind man without a cane, and cheerfully and willingly sticking their necks in the noose the Rats are dangling before them.
My fear is that this will play out in such a way that we'll have President Kerry and a Rat House and Senate. Then the so-called free traders will get exactly what they don't want, oppressive government regulation, restrictive trade policies, higher taxes, and more bureaucracy. Which is a hell of a lot worse than anything anyone on FR has ever suggested.
Bush really needs to distance himself from the idiot comments people are making about how it is good that people are losing their jobs to foreign sources and suffering as a result, that it is somehow good that the industrial, technological, and intellectual capital of the country is either being sold out in the marketplace or allowed to decay away. Bush has made a good start with the speech he made the other day about being more concerned with people rather than numbers. He has to demonstrate some leadership on this issue, something that makes an impression on real people who honestly fear for their jobs, because those people are going to cast their vote more influenced by what their gut tells them than by what some government bureaucrat-bean counter says.
Yup, it will probably happen. The perception is out there that President Bush not only doesn't care if my job is exported overseas, but he's damn glad about it and thinks its a good thing!
And perception is king at the voting booth.
The Republicans have a very short time to change that perception and so far they have done nothing but reinforce it IMHO.
I don't count the Presidents latest "I feel your pain" speech because he changed nothing at all that would actually impact the problem.
The time for words has passed.