A week that had the potential to be a disaster for Team Bush turned out to be roses for them. Rocked last week by the Clarke attack, they started the week decidely on the defensive and under intense pressure to produce NSA condi Rice for the 9/11 Commission. They defused the criticism by agreeing to produce not only Rice, but the President and VP as well. It also appeared the public had either tired of Clarke or the Republican attacks on him were beginning to score. A Newsweek poll showed half the public didn't believe him, a devastating indictment considering all the media firepower marshalled on his behalf to attack the President. A second bombshell exploded when polling numbers revealed that the intense focus on security issues had actually helped teh President, as Kerry managed to lose a significant lead he had in crucial battleground states. This is ominous news indeed for the Massachusetts contingent, as they could hardly have hoped to have the security issue framed in a manner more favorable to them. Still, when forced to focus on it, voters clearly favored Bush. Kerry was absent from the playing field for a second week,this time on account of apparently minor surgery. Couldn't it wait until after the election? Or was it more serious than the Kerry camp is admitting? Even diehard Demicrat supporters like the Washington Post were scratching their heads. The lackluster Kerry effort is beginning to remind people of the disastrous Bob Dole campaign, another party man with an even more impressive war record who never attracted a national following. A lackluster week for Kerry turned into a nightmare this morning with the release of the March employment numbers, which showed an upside blowout. Kerry had based most of his domestic attacks on poor job growth. Although the President can do little to affect job gowth directly, the issue had the potential to be a real problem for Bush. Now it appears to have blown up in Kerry's face, and made a good bit of his advertising seem moot overnight. Bottm line, an impressive comeback week for the incumbent. The White House's biggest problem now may be complacency.
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?" http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the war on terrorism?" http://www.pollingreport.com/terror.htm
911 Hearings appear to have raised concerns about both the Bush Administration's credibility and its overall performance. Nearly 6 out of 10 Americans say that they are following the hearings "closely" http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/02/opinion/polls/main609944.shtml
Perhaps someone should have focused a little more on leadership during the nomination for the democrat's candidate. It might just be that Wesley Clark was a good alternative when it comes to running things. At least he doesn't hate reading, staff meetings etc. (i.e hate working in administration) like some republican candidates do. Other career politicians doing the worst populist wriggling and offering outrageous protectionistic promises is no good either. It's great that the whole nation has some real choice and a virtual smorgasbord of candidates to chose from - come the november election. Just a nice effect of an intelligent voting process, I guess.
Why hasn't Kerry been able to capitalize on it then? You have to agree that Kerry could not have hoped for the issue to be better framed for him.
What's ironic is that the Bush apologists on this board have been complaining for years that diminishing jobs and the poor economy are not his fault, that it's all Clinton's fault, boo hoo. And suddenly with some good jobs numbers guess who is the hero and gets the credit? Typical. If something goes wrong in the war on terrorism, international relations, the CIA, the FBI, domestic security, the economy, etc. let's still blame it on Clinton after 3 years with Bush at the helm. But if anything goes right, let's credit it to our man at the top. Hypocrisy.
Wonder how many of those new jobs created have to do with the supermarket strike settlement here in California. Were those jobs REALLY created? I think not..... but, they count towards the number.
Hey CrackedBack, that is a very good point that you make since that strike involved 70,000 workers! http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/040326/economy_labor_strikes_1.html