Surprising Polling

CNN.com – Support for Bush’s re-election falls below 50 percent

Interesting numbers from this poll. The questions seem fair and not leading. I definitely won’t vote for Bush in 2004, no matter who’s running against him. We have a President of Lowered Expectations in office, and he’s fulfilling all of them. He’s killing any diplomatic goodwill we had in the international community with his begrudging attitude towards the UN. His dismissal of the benefits of inspections, and his lack of support for the process is unbelievable. Yes, he went back to the U.N., but he did so after publicly saying he was going to war with or without them. That’s no way to set it up. That’s a high school debate team mistake. You don’t go into a negotiation saying your position is already solidified. He’s tried to backpedal saying that war is a “last resort”, but no one really believes that after statements made in the past six months by him, Cheney and others in the administration.

He may not be an idiot, but that’s the image he portrays. I honestly don’t care if he’s smart and has it all together in private. His public persona is what the American people and the international community has to go on because most of us will never meet him. He looks and sounds like an idiot, therefore, that’s what I have to think he is. He looks and acts like a politician set on making his pals and contributors money while destroying our civil liberties and the economy in the process. It may not be so, but that’s the impression I get from what he says. The man inspires no confidence in me. The man doesn’t inspire me at all. Our greatest Presidents have not only been intelligent men, artful negotiators and good managers; they have been graceful and powerful orators, able to convey their goals and plans to the American people in a way that inspires trust and confidence. It’s hard to accept, but it’s the truth. We need the President to be as much a motivator as we do the country’s commander-in-chief. Our President has to be able to evoke images of strength, intelligence, benevolence and justice. President Bush tries to project strength, but looks like a bully to me. He tries to project intelligence, but the only time he can get through a speech without making some outrageous error is when I can tell he’s practiced in a million times. He tries to project justice, but again, sounds like a bully. Benevolence usually looks like Fundamentalist fervor.

That said, I support disarming Saddam. I think we will probably need to end up going to war to do so. What I don’t support is the method. The ends do not justify the means. If we disarm Saddam but our country ends up an international pariah, is that worth it? We have a century of goodwill flushed down the toilet by a hamhanded an indelicate President’s Administration and we’re supposed to support him? I don’t support him. I support the idea of disarming Iraq. I would support a war to disarm him if it comes to that. I support our troops fighting this war. I don’t support or agree with the methods my government is using to accomplish Iraq’s disarming.

It’s a hard position to articulate. I still honestly think that it doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what I do. I’m pretty sure this President could care less what his actions mean to the American public and middle class America. If he does care, it doesn’t show. Like I said, it’s all about the public persona and his actions as President in the public arena. Those actions make me less than comfortable having him as my President. I will do whatever I can with my one little vote in 2004 to make sure he’s not President after January of 2005.