WASHINGTON - For the first time, more people say George W. Bush's presidency will be judged as unsuccessful than say it will be seen as a success, a poll finds.
Forty-one percent of respondents said Bush's presidency will be seen as unsuccessful in the long run, while 26 percent said the opposite. Thirty-five percent said it was too early to tell, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
In January, 36 percent said successful and 27 percent said unsuccessful.
The increasing pessimism about Bush's long-term prospects comes at a time when many polls have found the public increasingly is negative about Bush's performance and the direction of the country.
When the country is facing so many uncertainties and problems, it is no wonder that the president's poll numbers have been dropping. Take your pick of issues--Iraq, Valerie Plamegate, Fema Fiasco, the economy, the budget deficit, health care, and our deteriorating foreign relations. But here's the real kicker in the story:
Seven in 10 said they want the next president to offer policies and programs that are different from the Bush administration's.
This has got to be very bad news for Republican strategists looking towards both the 2006 midterm and 2008 presidential elections. The first big problem is that the Republicans control both the White House and both houses of Congress--they can't really place much blame of the country's problems on the Democrats when they control the levers of power. The Democratic Party is obstructing the legislation for our vision of the country? Well, that's what the opposition party is suppose to do. What the Republicans have to realize is that they need to compromise--give some things up to the opposition in order to get legislation through. That's bipartisanship. The second big problem the Republicans have is all the scandals and corruption that's sticking to their leadership. Valerie Plamegate has embroiled White House ubber-brain Karl Rove and Vice Presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby. House majority leader Tom DeLay has been indicted on money laundering charges stemming from the Jack Abramoff scandal, and now DeLay's replacement for majority leader Roy Blount is tainted with Abrmaoff. Senate majority leader Bill Frist is under investigation for stock insider trading. All of this is coming out, even though the congressional leadership has avoided any investigations into these scandals. As this mess continues gaining headlines in the news (Just wait until Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald starts handing down indictments in the Valerie Plame scandal), there's a good chance that the American public would start kicking out the Republican senators and representatives, possibly reverting control of one or both houses of Congress to the Democrats. And you can bet the Democrats will start their own congressional investigations into a number of these scandals--certainly against the White House. How much lower can Bush's poll numbers go?
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