- WASHINGTON (APJP) -- It isn't
much of a surprise to me that George W. Bush's poll numbers are circling
the drain. One need only look to the left, the right, up, or down to realize
that almost nothing is going well America. But then you'd have to have
been off the planet for a couple years not to know that since the former
Texas governor took office as the putative "President" of the
United States at the wily invitation of five members of the United States
Supreme Court, things have been going down hill.
-
- Let's take a look.
-
- The economy is tanking.
-
- Corporate leaders, including Vice President Cheney, are
facing investigations for the worst kinds of thievery from their stockholders.
-
- The United States is loathed by most foreign populations
and nearly all governments around the world, including our allies -- and
yes, together with Great Britain, despite the masquerade from British Prime
Minister Tony Blair.
-
- Unemployment has nearly doubled in the past 18 months,
and huge layoffs in the near future have already been announced.
-
- United Airlines is the first of many major air carriers
to go into bankruptcy.
-
- The Bush "Administration" -- egged on by heretofore
high approval ratings, largely the result of what they see as a gift from
God (those events of September 11, 2001) -- has not found a single shred
of evidence that Saddam Hussein has or is planning to use "weapons
of mass destruction" against the United States or anyone else save
for a few "empty" warhead that "could" have contained
some sinister stuff before being discarded.
-
- Mr. Bush has failed in his promise to catch or kill Osama
bin Laden. Not a single important Al Qaeda member has been to trial or
punished.
-
- Meanwhile, the Attorney General, John "Southern
Partisan" Ashcroft, is engineering the arrest of American citizens,
among others, without due process of law -- and locking "illegal combatants"
up in Cuba beyond the not-so-vigilant eyes of America's media.
-
- And, of course, all the news you hear, see or read about
all of the above -- and so many other issues and events -- is controlled
by a handful of corporate CEOs who back the ideals of the Bush family,
the Republican Party, and extremist ultra right wing ideologues.
-
- News programming has become a twenty-four hour a day
sham. Talk radio is dominated by Neo-fascist commentators, and more than
80 million Americans get ALL their news from talk radio according to recent
surveys.
-
- When liberals or progressives attempt to present their
points of view they are shouted down, ignored, smirked at by television
and radio hosts -- or see the programs that they host cancelled
-
- Medical care is so costly that an average family of four
pays more than $12,000 a year in premiums -- not including pharmaceutical
care. Drug prices have skyrocketed and the White House sits by, promising
pharmaceutical "aid" to seniors but doing nothing to deliver
on the promise. Americans in the super majority are begging for government-sponsored
health care -- and not a single source is reporting this phenomenon. Drug
companies gave more money to right-wing candidates last year than any other
sector of industry.
-
- The White House has sent more than 100,000 young Americans
off to the Middle East to prepare for a war that the entire world, free
or otherwise, opposes.
-
- And it does not help that George w. Bush looks and acts
like a buffoon, sneering and smirking, thumbing his nose at all foreign
leaders asking him to take an attack on Iraq more slowly and definitely
more seriously.
-
- The Attorney General spent more than $25,000 to cover
the naked bosom of the bronze statue of Blind Justice outside his office
-- probably the most expensive burkha in history. And Mr. Ashcroft is down
on his knees praying to Jesus every morning -- in although representing
a nonsectarian justice system and a nation with a Constitution that clearly
and literally separates church from state.
-
- Mr. Bush has decided that giving minorities extra points
on college admission scores is "unconstitutional" and is filing
an amicus curiae brief to this effect in the Supreme Court -- even while
paying lip service to fair and ethical treatment of unfairly treated black
and Hispanic citizens.
-
- Interest rates are about to skyrocket -- and the last
bubble of wealth, personal real estate values, is about to burst. Personal
bankruptcies are at all-time highs, but the White House is busy pressuring
Congress to make certain that working people cannot declare bankruptcy
in any way that will free them from debt so that they might make a fresh
start.
-
- In Mississippi and many other southern states the rate
of illiteracy among minorities is over 65%.
-
- Mr. Bush has proposed tax cuts that help the wealthy
and largely ignored and insulted the working poor by giving them a tax
cut that will not even cover their annual cable televisions bills.
-
- Progressive leaders are concentrating on driving people
out of their SUVs -- when they might better spend their time and money
driving the Vice President from office for the crimes he committed while
Chairman of Halliburton, an oil services company which not only overstated
its profits under the tutelage of Cheney-hired Arthur Andersen (itself
a convicted felon) but also traded with Iraq under a Cayman Island corporation
cooked up by Cheney and his board after Cheney lobbied Congress hard to
insert loopholes in Iraqi sanctions to allow such "oil bidniss"
on a more regular basis.
-
- The homeless are being driven out of one city and into
another rather than being provided with food and shelter as one would do
for any pathetically poor stranger.
-
- HMOs persist on denying medical care to the mentally
ill and instead out them on the streets to be raped, murdered and maimed.
-
- The chasm between rich and poor in America is widening
to 19th Century proportions. Union strength has been decimated to such
an extent that collective bargaining has become an inside joke on Washington's
K Street
-
- The White House has now shut down all the streets surrounding
it and placed batteries of surface to air missiles around its perimeter.
-
- The Vice President hides out in bunkers, ostensibly to
be able to save the Republic if and when Washington is attacked by some
unnamed source.
-
- We are about to spend $2 trillion of OUR money on a war
for which we are unprepared and from which we may not be able to extricate
ourselves.
-
- In short, the nation has gone partially insane -- and
television news has utterly failed to notice.
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- On Monday, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman announced his
candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president. I like Joe Lieberman
a lot, but he is a conservative Democrat, and his laudable links to religion
and ethics make him too like the neoconservative right and therefore unable
to create a large enough semantic differential between himself and Mr.
Bush. Added to this is America's penchant for bigotry and racism -- something
that does not show up well in polls.
-
- As an aside, I recall sitting in several one-on-one meetings
with Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley's staff when he was running for governor
of California.
-
- All the polls showed Bradley ahead -- even at the end.
-
- I reminded the group, the day before the election, about
what Vernon Jordan calls "America's dirty little secret": racism.
I told them to make certain that the GOTV (get out the vote) operations
were in the highest gear. They pooh-poohed those comments.
-
- Of course, Bradley lost, and in hindsight I look like
a guru -- but in fact I believe that Democrat campaign professionals often
hide their heads in the sand when it comes to assessing just how far right
wing Republicans will go to win.
-
- Another example similar to this one is the congressional
seat held by Peter Kostmeyer in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Kostmeyer was
challenged by a the perfect family man -- Jim Coyne, a textbook example
of a Republican half-wit who only lasted one term before voters threw him
out of office. I was running a Senate campaign at the time. I noticed for
two weeks straight prior to the election that local pastors were preaching
anti-gay sermons from pulpits around the county. After some checking I
found that RNC operatives had been briefing the clergy -- and telling them
that Kostmeyer was gay. To be honest, I don't know if he is gay, but it
worked and Peter had to find a new job that next year.
-
- The same will happen to Lieberman.
-
- A whispering campaign will begin, fueled by the Republican
National Committee or their assigns about trusting "Jews" to
run the country. It will get dirtier that that behind closed doors, but
the public line might be that Lieberman could not be trusted to do the
"right thing" concerning Israel and the Middle East because he
of his heritage.
-
- Yes, it stinks, and it will never show in the polls,
but it will raise its ugly head as it has a hundred times before in less
important races.
-
- Other announced candidates or those already having set
up fundraising committees include Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Massachusetts
Senator John Kerry, Missouri Representative Dick Gephardt, and North Carolina
Senator John Edwards. The Rev. Al Sharpton, Florida Sen. Bob Graham, and
former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart are also seriously considering a challenge
for the nomination.
-
- The jury is still out on Governor Howard Dean of Vermont
but a private dinner with Washington's Democrat elite occurs next week
-- so we shall see.
-
- North Carolina's John Edwards, a litigator with an excellent
reputation and a one-term US Senator, is the fair-hared boy of the moment.
Although he trails Lieberman and Kerrey among Democrats polled, I am not
aware of a poll done after the Lieberman announcement. A Gallup Poll of
438 self-identified democrat voters and leaners completed on 12 January,
before Lieberman's stepped up PR efforts and before his formal announcement,
showed the following:
-
- Lieberman is in a close race with three other candidates.
At 19% support among Democrats, Lieberman has a statistically significant
lead over all candidates except Kerry, who is preferred by 16% of Democrats.
Gephardt at 13% and Edwards at 12% comprise the second tier of candidates,
while Graham (7%), Hart (5%), Sharpton (4%), and Dean (4%) all poll below
10%.
-
- The results are very similar among Democrats who are
registered to vote
-
- The most interesting finding from Gallup, based on other
research, is that a plurality of Democrats would support Hillary Clinton
if the New York Senator and former First Lady decided to run.
-
- Remember that all these numbers mean exactly nothing,
with the exception of Mrs. Clinton's. For anyone interested, no politician
ignores numbers this high, at this stage. Even though Senator Clinton demurs
for now, there is nothing standing in her way later if a strong candidate
does not emerge from the pack -- except for Fox News that is.
-
- Senator John Kerry has not done as well as should be
expected from one the best known and best funded of the group. I reserve
judgment on Kerry and do not agree that his demeanor works against -- him
although some feel he appears pompous and sort of foppish. The big issue
is how the Democrat candidate will look juxtaposed against George W, Bush.
If the economy remains in a slump and Bush's war plans backfire, a slightly
snobby patrician "look" might look "mighty fine" against
the forklift-driver image of George W.
-
- To my mind, Dick Gephardt, despite my admiration for
him, is not much for the current field. Gephardt has been around -- and
has been mentioned and even battled as a presidential candidate before.
He lost. To be perceived as a loser among a large pack of otherwise qualified
potential winners is not pretty. Just ask Al Gore -- who, by the way, won
the presidential in 2000 despite what the Supreme Court might tell you.
-
- I like Bob Graham of Florida, but he will have to emerge
long and strong to do battle with the already-announced and talked-about
candidates in this pack. Let's see if he can muster the money and strength
to do so.
-
- But there is one overriding point that begs to be made
-- and I know I am not alone in my opinion on this one: thus far, none
of these candidates particularly inspires me because none presents a clear-cut
difference for the nation. George W. Bush -- or more specifically, his
maniacal political advisor Karl Rove -- will be able to easily co-opt most
platform planks I've heard these candidates talk about.
-
- On the other hand, the good news for Democrats is that
George W. Bush is starting to tank in the polls despite what you may hear
from the mainstream media.
-
- Although the economy seems to look just a tiny bit better,
Bush's "F scores" are dropping, and people appear to be tired
of his spoiled teenager routine wherein he sneers and snorts like an adolescent
caught in the attic smoking as he threatens that he'll get Saddam Hussein
"no matter what."
-
- Bush looks like a spoiled schoolboy to most of the world
-- and at least 66% of Americans, 34% of who say they will definitely vote
against Bush in 2004 and 32% who say they might vote against him.
-
- This number seems to be wasted on -- or intentionally
ignored by -- the mainstream media. Nonetheless, if I were Rove, I would
be throwing chairs through the window about now.
-
- Any professional will tell you that these numbers change
daily -- and they do. But today, Democrat strategists know two simple facts.
-
- (1) Bush is beatable.
-
- (2) All they have to do is move 16-17% of the "might
vote against Bush" column into the "definitely won't vote for
that little twit" column within the next two years.
-
- In fact, today, Bush can only count on votes form 36%
of American registered voters -- less than the percentage of voters who
are registered Republicans (source: Gallup Poll).
-
- So take heart, liberals and progressives.
-
- Maybe the beginning of the end for the Bush Administration
is near.
-
- Or, maybe not.
-
- _________
-
- American Politics Journal celebrates its fifteenth anniversary
this year as the longest-running political commentary on the Internet.
America's most powerful decision shapers and opinion makers, media professionals
and political junkies look to American Politics Journal to tear the lid
off the lies, greed, fraud and propaganda that pass for politics, press
coverage, justice and punditry in America. We pull no punches. We speak
truth to power. And we even manage to find a chuckle or two in the process!
Enjoy Yourself, it's later than you think!! Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself
while your still on the pink!!!
|
