The Bush Presidency Is Failing

When Mr. Bush won a second term he said, “Let me put it to you this way: “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” Mr. Bush considered the election an endorsement of his policies in Iraq, his handling of the economy, and his plans to improve health care and Social Security. The ever-gracious Mr. Cheney said the popular vote victory gave Mr. Bush a mandate to continue pushing for the Republicans' "clear agenda."

Many news outlets echoed this sentiment. The Wall Street Journal called the election “a decisive mandate for a second term.” USA Today declared that Mr. Bush would begin his second term “with a clearer and more commanding mandate than he held for the first.” Well, the truth is that he barely won the election with 51% of the vote. That’s not exactly a mandate.

And the election was not untainted by serious voting irregularities. In Ohio, the key to Mr. Bush’s victory, more than one-quarter of all voters experienced voting problems, including long lines, registration-status challenges, polling-location changes, difficulties obtaining absentee ballots, unclear rules for provisional ballots, and illegal requests for identification. African-American voters waited in line to vote an average of 52 minutes, three times as long as white voters.

In any event, it is interesting to see Mr. Bush’s polling numbers over the past few months. Last month, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll showed 53 percent of respondents disapproving of Mr. Bush’s performance. The latest Associated Press/Ipsos poll showed 56 percent of respondents disapproving of Mr. Bush’s performance.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on July 13^th showed the percentage of Americans who believe Bush is "honest and straightforward" fell to 41, while those who say they doubt his veracity climbed to 45 percent. Apparently the American public didn't like being "misled" on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and that country's alleged danger to the US.

A few days ago a Harris poll showed 64 percent disapproving of Mr. Bush’s handling of Iraq. The last CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll on the subject found 53 percent of respondents did not think it was worth going to war in Iraq.

The president's worst numbers come on the issue of Social Security, with respondents disapproving of his performance by a margin of more than 2-to-1 -- 64 percent to 31 percent. Mr. Bush has made changing the Social Security system a signature issue of his second term.

On the economy, only 41 percent of poll respondents said they approved of Mr. Bush's performance, compared to 55 percent who disapproved. On energy policy, only 36 percent approved, while 53 percent disapproved; and on health care, 34 percent approved and 59 percent disapproved.

Mr. Bush does have a lot of time left to get his approval ratings up. After all, he has the enormous power of the presidency. And he might yet surprise us all with a grand, bipartisan agenda that he’s kept tucked away in his nightstand. Yet any talk at this point about his political capital is nothing but bravado. His biggest asset, however, remains the fact that no matter how badly Mr. Bush governs, the Democratic Party is a spectacular mess with few appealing, proactive ideas.