Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Bush's Ratings   [Rich Lowry ]

The president's job approval ratings aren't looking so great lately: 36%, ARG; 40% Harris; 45% Rasmussen. I'm prepared to believe that all these polls are flawed for some reason or other, but it's clear that he's sagging. To which I have a brilliant solution, advanced in this column. Why not come out in favor of something that's popular? We all know leadership is about ignoring the polls, doing hard things, etc., but if your main initiatives are the war in Iraq and Social Security, and people don't particularly like either, eventually you are going to be in political trouble. Which appears to be what is happening. Now I believe Bush can boost the numbers on Iraq somewhat (and should try), but he's basically a captive of events there. It's on the border that he has an opportunity. He could align himself with about 70% of the public by sponsoring a border crackdown, not to mention begin to do his duty of enforcing our immigration laws. This seems an obvious play to me. Instead, he will likely stick to his quasi-amnesty and guest-worker proposals. You have to give Bush credit—he's the absolute opposite of Clinton. Clinton was in favor of small, popular things. Bush apparently likes to be in favor of big, unpopular things.

08/24 05:14 PMShare