FOR THE first two years of the Bush administration, the consensus in Washington, the media and among the American public in general was that the 2004 Democratic challenger would have little or no chance at capturing the White House. Throughout most of 2002 and during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the president's approval rating hovered above 65 percent. To counter the president, Democrats criticized Bush on the two issues he was most vulnerable: the economy and Iraq. For several months the strategy looked promising in spelling out Bush's downfall; however, it's now clear the anti-Iraq war, economy-criticizing platform is dead in the water.
This past summer provided ample evidence for Democrats to use against the president. Bush's much ballyhooed "end of major combat operations" speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln went sour as United States military in Iraq continued to mount. Saddam Hussein and other top officials remained at large, the civil structure in Iraq was unclear and terrorist attacks increased steadily, capped by the Aug. 20 bombing of the U.N. Headquarters in Iraq.
Democrats did indeed hammer the president on the Iraq issue. Former Democratic candidate Dick Gephardt called Bush "a miserable failure." Howard Dean noted, "Every day it becomes clearer that this was the wrong war at the wrong time." John Kerry provided one of the more infamous quotes of 2003 when he said, "What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States." The public listened to the rhetoric, and Bush's approval rating struggled to remain above 50 percent in late 2003.
But the truth of the matter is that the situation in Iraq improves markedly each and every day. All 22 universities and 42 technical institutes are now open in Iraq. Daily peak power production has increased by more than one-third since early August, and the country is set to hold national elections on June 30th when the Coalition Provisional Authority leaves Iraq. Of the top 55 officials under Saddam, the United States has captured or killed 45, including Saddam Hussein, whose capture marked the unofficial death of the anti-Iraq war movement.
If the capture of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 14 crippled the Iraq war portion of the Democrats' plan to defeat Bush, then Dec. 10 was the day the economic portion went down in flames. On Dec. 10, the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 10,000 for the first time since May of 2002. In addition to the recent gains in both the DOW and the NASDAQ, the GDP grew at the highest rate in two decades in the third quarter of 2003. Consumer confidence is now at its highest level since July of 2002, and several other economic indicators are at multi-year highs. It is now clear that the economy will not play nearly as important a role in the 2004 election as many Democrats had hoped.
Frankly, Iraq and the economy were brainless issue choices to use against President Bush. The situation in Iraq was bleak on many an occasion during the past year, but pulling out of the country was never a question. And as much as Democrats attempted to portray post-war Iraq as a cesspool of terrorism and chaos the, images of flag-waving Iraqis dancing in the streets after the capture of Hussein were unassailable.
As for the economy, Democrats clearly missed ECON 201 at their respective alma maters. Lest they would have known the 2001 tax cuts implemented by Bush were going to provide the bulk of their stimulus now, and not two or three years down the road.
The stock market, in the toilet through much of Bush's term thanks to a post-tech bubble, post-Sept. 11, post-Enron hangover has never gone down more than three consecutive years in history, so Democrats were foolish to think it would stay down in 2003 and 2004.
The best example of the failure of the anti-Bush Democratic plan is Howard Dean. Once the Democrat front-runner, Dean criticized Bush just days before the capture of Saddam for allowing the dictator to remain at large. In addition to being the most ardent opponent of the Iraq war among the original nine candidates, Dean was also the harshest on the economy, suggesting that all of president Bush's tax cuts be repealed. Therefore, it's not surprising that just as Dean rode a wave of support when the President looked the worse on Iraq and the economy, he now finds his candidacy dead in the water as the Iraq and economy issue become less and less important.
(Joe Schilling's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jschilling@cavalierdaily.com.)
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