Bush risks election damage
2003-03-14 07:34
Washington - President George W Bush needs to look no further than his father's single term in the White House to see that an easy victory over Iraq is no guarantee of smooth sailing to reelection.
George Bush senior saw his popularity skyrocket thanks to the 1991 Gulf War to oust Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, only to see his bid for a new term founder on the perception that he did too little to revive the ailing US economy.
Bush junior faces a similar quandary: The United States believes it will have a speedy and easy victory in the rematch with Baghdad, but a tottering economy makes his 2004 reelection effort less than sure.
In fact, a new poll shows the president losing the White House to a Democratic rival - there are nine challengers already lined up - by a 48-44 margin due to voter worries about the economy and the war with Iraq.
The Quinnipiac University survey of 1 232 voters - which has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points - found that while 53% like Bush's job performance, 54% are at least somewhat dissatisfied with the country's direction.
Still, as soon as the bombs start falling in earnest, Bush can expect the US public to rally behind their president, sending his approval ratings through the roof, experts say.
"Once your first shot gets fired, Americans rally 'round the president," according to Stephen Hess, a presidential politics expert at the centrist Brookings Institution in Washington.
And, unlike the deeply divisive Vietnam conflict, which tore US society apart, the conflict itself does not threaten to be protracted - unlike the occupation of Iraq that Bush says will be needed when the shooting stops.
Americans "don't rally 'round forever, but this isn't going to be forever, it's going to be very fast, and it's getting rid of a bad guy," explains Hess.
Though there is significant opposition among the US public to the war, and many here endorse military action only if it wins the UN seal of approval, Bush is not creating many new political foes and opposition Democrats have at best a splintered approach to action against Iraq.
"The Democrats can't quite get a handle on the national security question, to put it mildly," says Hess, who points out that many of the opposition party's heavyweights are running for president, requiring them to dampen criticism of the White House.
And, fearful of giving Bush's Republicans fodder for future elections, Democrats joined their rivals last October to approve overwhelmingly a resolution seen as giving him the green light to attack Iraq.
But the economy remains his Achilles' heel.
"There are really only two things that American voters care about and that is national security, where Bush is quite strong, and the economy ... which is pretty wobbly," says Hess.
With about 300 000 US and British troops in the Gulf region, awaiting the president's go order to face off against less well-equipped Iraqi forces, "the chances are pretty good that they will succeed," says Hess.
Victory should come with "relatively modest civilian casualties and relatively modest 'friendly fire'" accidental deaths, said Hess, who acknowledged that the worst-case scenario for Bush was not out of the question.
"Things go wrong. We can't predict" developments like Saddam's possible use of weapons of mass destruction, or of terrorist attacks in the United States, he said.
"Look at what they were predicting from the 1991 Gulf War. They said Bush One would have a coronation instead of an election. All of the first-tier Democrats decided not to run. And the governor of a small southern state became a two-term president of the United States."