Dick Morris's advice to W
THE FIGHT W'S DODGING
By DICK MORRIS
New York Post
March 15, 2006 -- AS his ratings sink below 40 percent and he even loses his grip on the Republican base, President Bush faces a crucial test: To succeed in his final three years in office, he has got to work much, much harder at maintaining popularity than he is right now.
To avoid lame-duck status, he has to manifest the same effort and maintain the same schedule in 2006, '07, and '08 that he did in '03 and '04.
George W. Bush is not lazy; he works hard at the job of president. But not at the job of regaining his popularity - perhaps out of an old-school belief that popularity is for elections. But this mistakes the nature of modern American politics - where popularity is for every day, and those who lose it are destined to twist in the wind.
If Bush doesn't get his act together and begin to work hard at building popular support, his self-indulgence will land him in ever-deeper misery. His ratings will stay stagnant; then he'll lose one or both houses of Congress - and spend his final two years in office dodging opposition bullets, subpoenas, perhaps even impeachment. It will mean personal misery for this good man, and leave a cloud on his legacy that will take years to erase.
All because he doesn't want to do what he must - get up every day and go out and speak to America.
President Bill Clinton kept his job rating over 60 percent through all the days of Monica and impeachment. It had nothing to do with a good economy; as Bush is finding out, a growing GDP doesn't guarantee growing approval ratings. Clinton went before the nation every day with a new speech, an executive order, a proposal, a bill signing or some other media event.
He didn't just recycle his old proposals. Each day, he unearthed a new idea or initiative to keep his daily majority. He knew that without it, with an opposition Congress, he was a goner.
(The rest is here.)
By DICK MORRIS
New York Post
March 15, 2006 -- AS his ratings sink below 40 percent and he even loses his grip on the Republican base, President Bush faces a crucial test: To succeed in his final three years in office, he has got to work much, much harder at maintaining popularity than he is right now.
To avoid lame-duck status, he has to manifest the same effort and maintain the same schedule in 2006, '07, and '08 that he did in '03 and '04.
George W. Bush is not lazy; he works hard at the job of president. But not at the job of regaining his popularity - perhaps out of an old-school belief that popularity is for elections. But this mistakes the nature of modern American politics - where popularity is for every day, and those who lose it are destined to twist in the wind.
If Bush doesn't get his act together and begin to work hard at building popular support, his self-indulgence will land him in ever-deeper misery. His ratings will stay stagnant; then he'll lose one or both houses of Congress - and spend his final two years in office dodging opposition bullets, subpoenas, perhaps even impeachment. It will mean personal misery for this good man, and leave a cloud on his legacy that will take years to erase.
All because he doesn't want to do what he must - get up every day and go out and speak to America.
President Bill Clinton kept his job rating over 60 percent through all the days of Monica and impeachment. It had nothing to do with a good economy; as Bush is finding out, a growing GDP doesn't guarantee growing approval ratings. Clinton went before the nation every day with a new speech, an executive order, a proposal, a bill signing or some other media event.
He didn't just recycle his old proposals. Each day, he unearthed a new idea or initiative to keep his daily majority. He knew that without it, with an opposition Congress, he was a goner.
(The rest is here.)
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