Bush's Stumbles Don't Boost Kerry

By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer

"I would say the news environment has not been overwhelmingly positive, generally," says Matthew Dowd, the Bush-Cheney campaign's chief strategist, chuckling to himself, aware of his understatement. "If you are an incumbent president you have to deal with current events."

And there certainly has been a lot for President Bush to deal with recently.

April had almost as many U.S. casualties as the first two months of major combat operations in Iraq last year. There was an uprising, still not fully put down, by supporters of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. And, two weeks ago, the exposure of pictures of U.S. troops sexually humiliating and abusing Iraqi prisoners created a worldwide railing against the United States and set Washington into a frenzy.

Through it all, however, President Bush has remained even with Democratic rival John Kerry in national polling. While Kerry has become emboldened in the last two weeks, increasingly critical of the president's policies in Iraq, he has failed to make headway in the national conversation.

"In spite of current events, in spite of people's attitudes toward certain things, Kerry hasn't benefited to any great degree from it, which is why I think it goes to this middle place we are in," Dowd said. "When it is not overwhelmingly positive or overwhelmingly negative you are in the middle ground and therefore people are going to compare the two people."

But weak approval ratings for President Bush could prove good for Kerry if independent and centrist Republican voters conclude he is a viable alternative. As the axiom goes, reelection campaigns are a referendum on the current administration; a referendum possibly lost for the Bush-Cheney campaign, if the current polling trends continue.

CBS News' latest poll places Mr. Bush's overall job approval rating at 44 percent, continuing a gradual decline over the past month. A Pew poll this week showed the same low mark, while a Gallup Poll put the president's approval rating at 46 percent. All three represent the lowest numbers since Mr. Bush since he took office.

But Dowd says he is "not worried about poll numbers," because it is "where I thought we would be."

Although recent history shows that incumbents with approval ratings below the 50s, six months before Election Day, (Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush) do not get reelected, while those situated comfortably above that mark (Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton) do, some Republicans are skeptical that this is a pertinent political paradigm.

"The wall-to-wall coverage that you get on all the things that come out, these polls are going to go up and down much more dramatically than they did ever before," says Fred Malek, who served as campaign manager for President George H.W. Bush's failed 1992 reelection bid and directed the 1988 Republican convention.

"Kerry is not going to win the election," Malek added. "He only gets into office by people deciding they really do want a change."

The Kerry campaign is not concerned, saying its candidate is making headway in local media as he tours the country speaking about jobs and health care. It cites recent polls in the key battleground states of Ohio and Florida that show Kerry ahead. The campaign points out that its fundraising is far surpassing all expectations, on track to reach $120 million by the Democratic convention in late July.

"I'd rather be where we are, growing, than where they are," Kerry told reporters when asked why his standing in head-to-head polls hasn't improved.

The presumed Democratic nominee is still attempting to tread the thin line between criticizing the president over his handling (Kerry says botched handling) of Iraq and not appearing to exploit U.S. soldiers' deaths.

All the while, the Bush-Cheney campaign has broken all fundraising records. This week it hit the $200-million mark, already double what it raised in 2000. But the campaign must spend this cash by the conclusion of GOP convention in early September. And it is the October polls that follow that both campaigns recognize as the harbinger of who will hold the White House in 2005.

"I think the voters are overwhelmingly focused on the economy and the war on terror slash Iraq," Dowd says. "I think Iraq and the war on terror and the economy are going to be the dominant themes of this whole election for the next 172 days."

The Bush-Cheney campaign's hope is that after the June 30 partial handover of sovereignty in Iraq, stability will begin to take hold and there will be a residual effect on the president's poll numbers.

But President Bush's strategists are not banking on a better Iraq. There is a sense of helplessness to external events. The Bush-Cheney campaign is left to hope that improved policy leads to improved news and then an improvement in the polls. But the Republican confidence of six months ago that Mr. Bush was facing an all but certain reelection is gone.

Dowd, however, has always said this presidential campaign would be close.

"My thoughts are that we are in this middle place where previous presidents, you knew they were going to get elected or you knew they were not," he concedes. "When you are in this middle territory you have to ask voters who do they trust more."

The essence of the Bush-Campaign strategy is exactly that: to portray President Bush as the man who can be trusted most in hard times. It is a message the campaign hopes will surpass good or bad news out of Iraq, provided that voters maintain a wartime mindset.

"It is a long campaign," Dowd says, with a faint sound of weariness, like he has had to answer too many questions about the president's bad poll numbers. "We're tied," he insists and for now, the Bush-Cheney campaign will take that as the good, considering all the bad out of Iraq.