Wait until troop rotation in Iraq. How many of those Guardsmen still
have jobs @ home?
How much fresh meat will Iraqi's have to play with once the combat
veterans go home?
It will be a bloody spring and summer, as it was a bloody autumn.
American support for the VietNam war lasted until 1965/66, by 1967 it
was nearly gone.
By 1968 even tricky dick making up stuff about a rapid end to the war
was enough to get him elected. Who thought this loser would ever be seen
again after 1960? He was the Dan Quayle of the 1950's and 1960's!
Campaigning as anti-war helped him.
Despite North VietNam almost overrunning our "allies" in the Spring of
1972 offensive, tricky dick still pulled out the troops and bombed the
North into the stone age to bring an end to a war within reach. He
promised to end it 4 years prior but could not. Had he not done this the
six months prior to election day 1972, he would have lost because he was
elected on the promise of a resolution to an unpopular war. Iraq is an
unpopular war. If it heats up, and I think it will, it will become more
unpopular. Iraq will be Dubya's downfall, because it will not go away.
It will continue to bankrupt the country and cost more American lives.
There is no end in sight because Dubya and his cronies aren't capable of
figuring out how to end this mess, so the war will continue to grind on
pointlessly.
For what? For who? Not for my benefit! Probably not for yours either!
He's done... Time will prove me right!

NOYB wrote:
"Decal Pest" wrote in message
...

I remember another Bush riding high in 1991 after another war with
Iraq... even early-mid 1992 despite the soft economy looked like he was
undefeatable. Remember him?


Yeah, I remember. However, it looks like *you* have the memory problem.
Bush 41's approval rating was only at 50% (and dropping) by the end of 1991.
By April 2002, he was at 39%. By contrast, Bush 43's approval rating at the
end of his third year was 63%...and climbing. Every President (besides
Jimmy Carter) with an approval rating *over* 50% by the end of his third
year, has won the election the following year.

http://tinyurl.com/33ybu

History of approval ratings on Bush's side for re-election
By Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — President Bush is ending his third year in office with
63% job approval, the highest rating of any president since Lyndon Johnson,
who finished 1963 with a 74% rating a month after John F. Kennedy's
assassination.
Johnson went on to win the 1964 election 10 months later in a
landslide over Republican Barry Goldwater.

With the exception of Jimmy Carter, every president since Franklin
Roosevelt who ended his third year in office with job approval above 50% won
the re-election he sought. Presidential job-approval polling began with
Roosevelt.

Richard Nixon, who was at 50% at the end of his third year, also won.
Carter was at 54% when the year ended.

Polling analysts and presidential scholars agree that it is too early
to consider Bush a sure winner next year, despite his showing now. Things
can change:

•Bush's father was at 50% approval at the end of 1991, and he lost to
Bill Clinton. A sour economy and a perception that he was at a loss to fix
it helped do him in.

•Jimmy Carter ended 1979 with 54% approval and was defeated by Ronald
Reagan in 1980. Carter's response to the Iranian hostage crisis, which was
seen as weak, and a Democratic primary challenge by Sen. Edward Kennedy
eroded confidence in his leadership.

Bush is benefiting from recent positive signs on the economy and
rising confidence in his management of the Iraq war since the capture of
Saddam Hussein.

"He's had pretty good news for about a month now in the two major
areas the election will be contested over, the economy and Iraq," says
Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution, a think
tank in Washington.

The turn of events has also highlighted the split among the nine
Democratic presidential candidates as they adjust their messages for the new
conditions.

The candidates have broadened their criticisms of Bush from his
handling of the economy and Iraq to include his leadership on the
environment, health care, homeland security and civil liberties.

Polls are useful, but it's too early to predict a winner, says Frank
Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. Bush's approval in March or
April will be a more reliable clue to his staying power, Newport says.

He points out that every incumbent president since Roosevelt who was
at 50% approval or higher in April of his election year went on to win. "If
Bush is still above 50% in April, a defeat in November would be
unprecedented," Newport says.

The last two presidents who lost their bids for re-election, Carter
and the elder Bush, were both at 39% approval in April of the election year.

In March 1968, Johnson's job approval was 36%, due largely to growing
objections to the Vietnam War. He quit the race.

In March 1952, Harry Truman's approval had been dragged to 25% by the
Korean War. Truman won a full term after serving a partial one following
Roosevelt's death, but ended his 1952 re-election campaign after losing the
New Hampshire primary.

Although history appears to be on Bush's side, his political advisers
profess a reluctance to seem overconfident. Campaign aides and Republican
Party officials say they are mapping plans to run as if the president is
behind.

Campaign strategist Matthew Dowd, a pollster, expects Bush's approval
to ebb and flow but stay within the 50%-55% range until Democrats pick a
nominee.

Gallup's Newport notes that Bush's approval had been falling since a
2003 high of 71% in mid-April, when it appeared the Iraq war was ending
easily. He hit a low of 50% in November.

But Bush's recent turn upward can only be read as positive, Newport
says.

"You want to be tracking upward, the higher the better," he says. "The
only concern he might have is peaking too early."