- Iraqi casualties are a big round number.
- Someone outed covert suburbanite Valerie Plame.
- The economy is pretty mediocre.
Bush was elected with 51% of the vote. His approval ratings are sitting around 40% right now. What does that tell you? I tells you a lot of people who voted for Bush aren't happy with him at the moment. So?
So Iraq and the Plame affair were going on when we voted for the man a year ago. As one of the unhappy 10% who voted for the President, let me say that I don't give a good God damn about them. Iraq has had elections and passed a constitution since then and the violence is at worst leveling off and seems to be falling. The Plame affair is partisan crap. The congressional scandals are much the same. The economy? Eh, if anything it's probably reacting the president's troubles.
So what is the real problem? The real problem is that the President has done a piss poor job of demonstrating any form of conservatism. In his first term, we forgave a lot of this because he had a war to fight, trouble in the Senate, and hopes for a second term. But now? There can't be a third term. Iraq is greatly improved, but government spending remains out of control. Furthermore domestic security, one of the things we trusted him to take care of, was proven insufficient by Hurricaine Katrina. His first term staff was an impressive brain trust. With the exception of Cheney and Condi, I wouldn't trust his second term staff to out-think my old high school trivia team.
So we're sick of it. And we can do the math. It's 3 years until the next presidential election? The public only remembers two. Now is the perfect time for us to express our displeasure with a minimum amount of collateral damage to the nation.
Most of this is fixable. Get fixing. Your base is your problem. Make us happy. Stop pandering to a left that will never even like you and throw us a bone. And not the kind you find in the bottom of a barrel of pork.
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