A Failed GOP Storyline Peddled By A Clueless Salesman

by Steve

As reports came out this morning of new bombings in Iraq and the death of 18 American soldiers over the last four days, George W. Bush is peddling a bankrupt storyline to the cultists that a new poll shows is obsolete. Reports from Iraq this morning reflect the worst losses in months for American troops, and an ongoing stream of kidnappings, executions, and bombings in areas of Iraq that were supposedly benefiting from new American-Iraqi security efforts. Meanwhile, Bush was raising money Tuesday for two Abramoff-tainted GOP incumbents here in California, Richard Pombo and the aptly-named John Doolittle, using a “soft on terror/tax raiser” smear that is losing traction, as evidenced by the fact that both Pombo and Doolittle are in danger of losing to their Democratic challengers next month.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was released yesterday, and like the CNN poll that came out just before it, the poll showed that Bush’s approval rating fell 3 points to 39% from this poll’s previous number of 42% last month. But this poll, taken over the weekend during the initial Bob Woodward, NIE, and Mark Foley damage also showed how much the GOP is losing control of the narrative heading into the final month of the campaign.

This poll’s sample was made up of 48% George W. Bush voters in 2004, and only 38% Kerry voters. Think about that as you read the rest of these results.

Detainee Treatment Bill

47% are against the bill, and 43% are in favor of it. Bush hasn't sold the public on the need for this bill.

Iraq

Despite the White House’s best efforts to avoid making the midterms a referendum on Iraq by selling a message that withdrawal in Iraq equates failure in the war on terror, registered voters in this poll aren't buying it. Fifty-seven percent of registered voters don't buy Bush's argument that our success in the war on terror is directly tied to what we do in Iraq. Furthermore, Iraq was identified as the Number One issue in the midterms, by 36% of respondents, a nine-point increase from early September.

61% of the poll’s respondents think Iraq is already in a civil war, and only 29% feel it is not.

After the release of the NIE and Woodward’s book, there was a 14-point jump in the number of respondents who think that the Iraq war is hurting the war on terror (32% in early September, 46% in early October).

Bush is still going around to the cultists in vulnerable GOP districts selling the only message he knows. We are four weeks away from the midterms, and this poll shows that the GOP message is already obsolete. Bush has been reduced to being nothing more than a traveling ATM for endangered Republicans, setting up his suitcase of Fuller brushes and snake oil for the gullible cultists. But at this rate, he will be largely irrelevant after this election.