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Bush ratings indicate changing perception?

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON AUG. 11. In what should be another wake-up call to this Republican administration, the approval rating of the President, George W. Bush has fallen to 53 per cent in a latest poll, down from 58 per cent in July.

And the Americans seem to be sending a message to the White House that the economy should have a higher priority than the war on terror.

Some 57 per cent of the Americans see the sagging economy, not terrorism as the first Presidential priority.

Only 27 per cent identified terrorism as the most pressing problem. Further, it is being said that women, especially elderly women, and middle and low income groups are moving away from supporting the President.

The latest poll by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press has a sobering message for the Democrats — six in ten Democrats are of the view that the Party has not done a satisfactory job in tackling such core issues as helping the poor or assisting the average worker.

And only 38 per cent of the Democrats believed that the Party is doing a `good' or an `excellent' job in protecting the minorities, down from 47 per cent in May 2001.

But the latest polls have a special significance for the current Republican administration as it tries to put on a front that its President, Mr. Bush, is as focused on the economy as he is on issues of foreign policy, the war against terror in particular. What should be an eye-opener to the White House — and of particular satisfaction to the Democrats — is that in a hypothetical match-up with a generic Democrat, Mr. Bush leads by only five percentage points, by 43 per cent to 38 per cent.

Mr. Bush's approval rating at this time would be around what it was before the terror attacks of September 11,2001;and the disapproval rating is the highest since the President took office nearly three years ago.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Mr. Bush's rating went up to 86 per cent, but was declining through most of 2002 and 2003 before touching 74 per cent at the time of going to war with Iraq.

In the last several weeks it has become quite apparent that even though a majority have approved the toppling of Saddam Hussein, getting bogged down in a mess in that country and with revelations on the manner in which this administration handled intelligence estimates and assessments in the run up to the war has indeed taken a toll.

The latest Pew poll has some news for the Pack of Nine in the Democratic Party aspiring to challenge Mr. Bush in November 2004 — one of the candidates, Howard Dean, is seeing his name recognition go up from 37 per cent in early July to 46 per cent.

According to this poll, Mr. Dean — seen in many quarters as the truly left of centre candidate in the party — stands fourth, after Joseph Lieberman, Jon Kerry and Richard Gephardt.

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