From: pearsodc@NeXTwork.Rose-Hulman.Edu (D)
Subject: Why's George in trouble?  (was The George Bush Fan Club?)
Organization: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 17:27:11 GMT


Mitch Sako writes
> In article 19768@cs.rose-hulman.edu, pearsodc@NeXTwork.Rose-Hulman.Edu  
(D) writes:
> >Question for all the Clinton folk out there...what happened?  Why, 
> >during the primaries, did it look like George was going to run away 
> >with this whole thing and leave Clinton (and even Perot, at the 
> >beginning) eating his dust, and now, just six months later, Bush's 
> >campaign is in disarray and he can't catch Clinton no matter what he 
> >does?  What do the American people know now that they didn't know six 
> >months ago?
> 
> I think you can point to a number of things.  First, the party of god 
> (GOP) laid it on a bit thick during the convention and scared the heck 
> out of alot of sane people who do not want the religious right running 
> the government.

Personally, I'd love to see the religious right running the government,  
and I'm here to tell you George Bush ain't it.  Closer than Clinton,  
perhaps, but George Bush is hardly evangelical.

Mitch, Bush first fell behing Clinton big time after Perot dropped out...  
a full month before the convention.  Bush hasn't gained much ground since  
the RNC, but he hasn't lost much ground either.  So I don't think the  
convention had much to do with it.

> Second, the state of the economy sucks and the bushman seems incapable 
> of offering anything to fix it other than blaming Congress or offering 
> up short-term capital gains tax cuts.

The state of the economy sucked at the beginning of the year.  Bush had a  
approval rating in the eighties.  We're now coming out of the recession  
and every economic indicator I've heard in the past three months has said  
"sluggish growth, but growth nonetheless."  It could be a heck of a lot  
worse.

> Third, unemployment figures look rather daunting and people out of work 
> typically do not vote for a sitting president, and this include people 
> who have jobs that are tenuous.  

Since when is circa 7% daunting?  I personally think that's pretty dad-gum  
good.  Now, granted, at this time into Reagan's first term he'd worked  
unemployment down from around 11% to around 7%, so that's a wee bit more  
impressive than from 5% to 7%.  Still, it could be a heck of a lot worse.
(Remember who got unemployment to double digits in the first place and  
couldn't get them back down?  Hint...he was a Democrat...)

> Fourth, the bushman has surrounded himself with incompetence, Sununu, 
> Skinner, Quayl, Gray, etc., who have all done nothing to help their 
> boss, in most cases embarrassing him.

With the notable exception of Dan-o (the most underrated man in politics,  
IMHO, and you and I will have to agree to disagree there, Mitch), right on  
the money.  Still, this was true when Bush's approval rating was at  
90%-plus.  What happened?

> Fifth, attacks on Clinton have been effectively counterpunched, 
> immediately and effectively.  

Along with the fact that the media has played Clinton's counterpunches to  
the hilt (because, depending on who you believe, the Liberal Media (TM)  
wants Clinton in or because Clinton is the first Dem in eons to  
counterpunch as well as he does...I personally think both are true.   
Willie's extremely slick), probably very key.

> Sixth, the commie-red-scare and no-new-taxes issues are dead, dead, 
> dead.

True, but on the new-taxes issue, true because our Bush-man has made a  
numbers game of it.  I think taxes are a very legitimate issue if Bush  
would play it right...which he isn't, and I don't know if he will.

> Lastly, Bush is incompetent on domestic issues, which has been proven 
> again and again.  He can't get it done, regardless of who he tries to 
> blame or what he tries to do.  He's a failure.

At least Clinton's the failed leader of a small Southern state; George is  
the failing leader of the free world.  Still, here's my big point...

At least two of the issues Mitch brought up (lackluster economy, high  
unemployment) involve stuff that's not nearly as bad now as the last time  
we had a Democrat in the White House.  Yet people are acting like it's the  
end of the world as we know it.  All I want to know is, why? 

clueless chuck
PearsoDC@NeXTWork.Rose-Hulman.Edu
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh