Republicans Worry About Bush Poll Numbers

[radfringe]

Republicans Worry About Bush Poll Numbers
Sun September 14, 2003 09:18 AM ET

By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With President Bush's poll numbers dropping, many of his fellow Republicans are uneasy about the state of the U.S. economy, rising budget deficits, and the U.S. military operation in Iraq.

---snip----

Others believe the president needs to go on the offensive and fight back against attacks from Democrats vying for the 2004 presidential nomination who appear to have found a voice in contesting Bush's Iraq policy and reliance largely on tax cuts to revive the economy.

"The White House needs to get back on the offensive and talk about some ideas and policies," said a senior Republican strategist in Washington, who asked to remain unidentified.

heh, all he does is talk, no action

-----snip-----

Some Republicans are concerned Bush seems to be spending an inordinate amount of time raising money for his 2004 re-election campaign race, lowering his profile from commander in chief to solicitor in chief and leaving him more open to Democratic assault.

yadda yadda yadda - reads a speech, (more hot air), then goes and collects his kick-backs from taxcuts

Bush has been to 20 fund-raising events in 12 states and Washington since mid-June and has raised more than $60 million, on his way to a goal of $170 million for a Republican primary campaign for which he has no challengers.

"He is spending too much time raising money. The goal is unbelievably high," said one prominent Republican. Others are starting to complain about the multiple phone calls they are getting seeking contributions.

[bluestateguy]

1. Fund-raising can only go so far

At a certain point you reach saturation and the law of diminishing return applies. In fact, raising gobs and gobs of money can even hurt a little becuase people start to see how beholden one is to special interests: look at Gray Davis who could never get over 50% in the polls. Davis' fund raising machine made him look like a bought and paid for politician. Bill Clinton in 1996 would have won a real landslide had revelations of his fund-raising not come to light in October. Also, there is so much free media in presidential campaigns that one of the major purposes for fund-raising--enhancing name recognition--becomes less necessary in a general election for the presidency.

[AndyTiedye]

2. He Doesn't Need any of that 170 Million

when his friends own nearly all of the TV and radio stations
and will soon be able to buy the rest, and the newspapers.

[OldSoldier]

3. The big bucks are for attack ads

I don't think federal matching funds can be used for this; ergo, if you want to win the presidency, you need to raise serious money for attack ads.

The history of the last few presidential elections indicates that the guy who goes negative on his opponent first wins--or is installed, in the case of Bush, but I think we would still have Bush even if he'd have never run an attack ad.

Bill Clinton went negative first in both of his campaigns, which is one of the reasons we had eight good years. Our guys need to get dirty on Bush before Bush can pull out his timeworn "liberal" tag.

It won't be hard, either. Run the names of the GIs he got killed in all his wars. Run the names of the 3000 people who died in the WTC and the Pentagon over a background of "The Pet Goat." Have a woman portraying a librarian being escorted out of her library in irons because she ran afoul of the PATRIOT Act and told a patron "someone in a dark suit and sunglasses was in here asking about your reading habits." And, of course, lots of pictures of him throwing the Hitler Salute with "it would be easier if this was a dictatorship, so long as I was the dictator" superimposed over it.