WASHINGTON - After
being battered by seemingly relentless bad news since
early April, US President George W Bush has enjoyed two
weeks of relatively good news, and this is showing up in the
polls - the most recent of which was taken
before the latest positive news, the unanimous United
Nations Security Council resolution on Iraq.
With slightly less than five months before the
November elections, the latest nationwide poll, released
on Thursday by the Los Angeles Times, still shows Bush
lagging behind presumptive Democratic nominee Senator
John Kerry, but not as badly as before. Kerry is shown
leading Bush by 51-44% in a two-man race, and by 48-42%
if independent candidate Ralph Nader is included.
The nominations of both Kerry and Bush will not
be officially announced until after party conventions
this summer. But the decisive electoral count - that is,
which candidates will take the electoral votes allocated
to each state - remains very close, amid indications
that Bush is doing better in several "battleground"
states than had been thought even one month ago.
According to the Times poll, and another carried
out last week by Zogby International, Bush is leading by
a large margin in Missouri, whose 11 electoral college
votes are considered critical to the chances of both
candidates, while Ohio's 20 votes, which were in Kerry's
column last month, are now leaning toward Bush, albeit
by an extremely narrow margin.
Bush's approval
ratings, which reached their nadir two weeks ago, have
also begun to swing upward, although, at between 46% and
51% in the most recent surveys, they are hovering well
below the levels that incumbent presidents have
historically needed for re-election. No modern president
with less than 50% approval five months before election
has been re-elected in the post-World War II era.
By most accounts, Bush will stand or fall by
what happens in two broad areas, both of which are
largely beyond his control - Iraq and the economy,
especially job creation.
On both fronts, he has
received relatively good news over the past two weeks.
The economy, which has clearly gained momentum since
last summer, has produced nearly half a million new jobs
in the past two months, according to government figures.
If that trend continues through the summer, Bush has an
"outside chance", as the Wall Street Journal put it, of
making back by election time the 2.2 million jobs that
were lost during his first three years in office.
If the price of oil also continues to decline
into the summer, many citizens who felt compelled to
make more modest summer vacation plans due to last
month's record gasoline prices may feel they can afford
longer trips. They may then feel a lot better by
September, when independent voters in particular begin
to focus on the candidates.
Since the
administration confirmed last month that it was headed
in a more pragmatic direction in Iraq - signaled by the
disgrace of neo-conservative hero Ahmad Chalabi (head of
the Iraqi National Council and a key player in
Washington's plans for occupied Iraq until he was
accused in May of passing US intelligence to Iran); the
selection of a new government headed by less polarizing
figures, which is supposed to take the reins on July 1;
and Bush's willingness to compromise with key allies to
get the latest UN resolution through the Security
Council - the news has also improved.
Last
weekend's death of former president Ronald Reagan
(1981-89) and the pomp and ceremony that followed also
helped push continuing revelations about the prisoner
abuse scandal in Iraq, touched off in late April, off
the front pages and evening newscasts this week, to the
Bush administration's great relief. It also permitted
Bush to wrap himself up tightly in the warm glow of
nostalgia evoked by Reagan's passing that flooded the
mass media all week.
Indeed, the Bush campaign's
Internet website is currently dominated by photos of and
references to Reagan, as well as US flags - a tactic
that struck analyst Joshua Micah Marshall as both "crass
and cynical" and "a tad desperate".
But the big
question now is whether the good news can last long
enough for Bush's approval rating to rise the 5 or 10
percentage points that he will need to beat back a Kerry
challenge. If the economy continues to strengthen and
adds jobs at the same or a faster rate than it did last
month, Bush could gain considerably, if only because
Kerry, who has hit the jobs theme hard, is running 11
percentage points ahead of the president on the issue.
But even if the economy did erase the job
deficit he has built up, Bush is still considered highly
vulnerable on the issue as the first president since
Herbert Hoover, who presided over the early years of the
1930s Depression, not to have added jobs during his
tenure.
Moreover, Republican strategists are
increasingly concerned that the Federal Reserve will
decide to push up interest rates this summer to prevent
the economy from overheating. That would bring hiring to
a screeching halt, as would a major new oil-price hike,
particularly one resulting from anticipated supply
problems caused by an attack by the al-Qaeda terrorist
group on Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure or even
growing civil conflict in Nigeria or Venezuela, other
major oil producers.
Similarly, Bush has only
limited control over the situation in Iraq, which, while
relatively calm since the selection of the new
government and the tentative withdrawal of Muqtada
al-Sadr's militia from Najaf, could blow up again at any
time, according to analysts both inside and outside the
administration.
The president's Iraq strategy
appears to rest on a general pullback of US forces to
less visible and vulnerable bases, intensification in
the training of local military and security forces, and
strong support for the government of Prime Minister Iyad
Allawi, who, after all, has been a favorite of the
Central Intelligence Agency since 1992.
To the
extent that Allawi feels obliged to rehabilitate members
of the Ba'ath Party of former president Saddam Hussein,
invite Muqtada to join the government, tolerate private
militias, and otherwise appease forces that Washington
had previously vowed to "crush" or "kill", Bush will not
stand in his way - so long as he and US ambassador John
Negroponte can provide at least the illusion of
stability, if not progress, for the voters back home.
But, as Republican strategists themselves
readily admit, that scenario is the best possible case
and, given the unpleasant surprises of the past year in
Iraq, is unlikely to come to pass. There is also the
possibility of a new crisis overseas - be it in Saudi
Arabia, Iran or North Korea - or even a new terrorist
attack on US soil that might confirm to many voters that
Bush's leadership has not improved national security.
And the steady stream of leaks of memoranda by
Bush appointees in the Justice Department, the Pentagon
and even the White House concerning the prisoner-abuse
scandal may well reclaim the spotlight once Reagan is
finally interred.
