To seize back the agenda, Bush grabs the bullhorn
His speeches on Iraq and economy stress successes.
Republicans have greeted the flurry of presidential speechmaking on Iraq and the economy - complete with slogans and campaign-style rhetoric - with a loud "it's about time."
At a congressional retreat last week, after President Bush had delivered the first of four major speeches laying out his plan for Iraq, the message to White House officials was clear: Do more to sell your successes. The next day, Mr. Bush made an unscheduled visit to the Rose Garden to highlight the latest economic news, including job gains, falling gasoline prices, and strong overall growth.
On Wednesday, Bush's second Iraq speech in eight days emphasized gains, admittedly uneven, in economic reform and reconstruction, citing Mosul and Najaf as examples of progress. After fighting to retake control of both cities, the White House asserts, coalition and Iraqi forces have rebuilt homes and schools and restored essential services. Bush packed his speech with statistics about public-works jobs, ongoing projects, and new businesses throughout Iraq.
"Iraqis are beginning to see that a free life will be a better life," Bush said in an address here to the Council on Foreign Relations, touting the resources Iraq can build on - oil, land, and water, and a young, educated workforce. Bush's remaining Iraq speeches, before Iraqis go to the polls on Dec. 15, will focus on political stability and then a wrapup of overall progress and strategy.
But for a president eager to rebound from low job-approval ratings and rebuild his reserves of political capital, the potential for serious gains from a bully-pulpit blitz remains uncertain. Ultimately, analysts say, the approach is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient: Facts on the ground must reinforce the words from the podium.
"Initially, I thought the speeches might even work for him," says John Zogby, an independent pollster. "One, it could possibly get back elements of the Republican base, and two, that the Democrats were in disarray.... But under the best circumstances, I didn't see the president getting back to 50 percent [job approval], and now the Democrats are starting to galvanize around the same themes regarding Iraq, if not immediate withdrawal, then staged withdrawal, enough so that they are where the national consensus is."
But, he adds, the president can't stop working the bully pulpit on Iraq, because otherwise he could get buried by the issue. Ditto with the economy, as top administration officials fanned out this week to point out positive developments to a public that has fixated on the negative, such as looming high winter heating bills and insecurity about jobs.
Indeed, as the White House looks ahead to the second year of its second term, and specifically to next month's State of the Union address, there may be signs that Bush's slide in the polls has stopped, if not turned around. Political analyst Charles Cook notes that the new Time magazine poll, with Bush at 41 percent job approval, is the third major poll in a row above 40 - after a nearly three-week stretch with only one out of 12 polls showing the president above 40.
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