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May 7, 2006
GOP Pollster: "This administration may be over!"
By Len Hart
Republican pollsters have seen the handwriting in the polls if not the wall. As the movement toward impeachment grows, Democrats may be willing to let Bush take down the GOP.
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The GOP may be hoping Democrats will press for impeachment. It would save them the dirty work of cleaning up their own party. One wonders if the GOP is spooked less by impeachment threats than the truth that will come out should Democrats regain control of congress. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi promised that as Speaker of the House, she would use the power of the subpoena to get to the truth about Bush's decision to wage war on Iraq.Pollster Suggests Bush Moves Might Be Too Little, Too LateA GOP impeachment of Bush may be attractive for yet another reason. At present, GOP candidates are spending time and money running away from Bush. But even jettisoning Bush may not help. After all, Republicans themselves are complicit in Bush's failed big government policies —the exponential increase in the national debt, the exploding deficit, a failed war that Bush refuses to pay for by taxing the very elite rich that have benefited most from it. As John Yewell, writing for Yahoo news put it: "Whereas the party of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi lacks unity, Republicans have too much."By Eric Pianin and Chris Cillizza
The recent White House shake-up was an attempt to jump-start the administration and boost President Bush's rock-bottom approval ratings, but have those efforts come too late to salvage the presidency? A prominent GOP pollster thinks that may be the case.
"This administration may be over," Lance Tarrance, a chief architect of the Republicans' 1960s and '70s Southern strategy, told a gathering of journalists and political wonks last week. "By and large, if you want to be tough about it, the relevancy of this administration on policy may be over."
A new poll by RT Strategies, the firm headed by Tarrance and Democratic pollster Thomas Riehle, shows that 59 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance, while 36 percent approve —a finding in line with other recent polls.
Tarrance said it would be extremely difficult for any president to bounce back this late in his administration and reassert influence on Capitol Hill when his approval rating barely exceeds his party's base support and half of all adults surveyed said they "strongly disapprove" of his performance. An overwhelming 73 percent of independents disapprove of Bush's performance, and two-thirds of those "strongly disapprove."
Len Hart is a Houston based film/video producer specializing in shorts and full-length documentaries. He is a former major market and network correspondent; credits include CBS, ABC-TV and UPI. He maintains the progressive blog: The Existentialist Cowboy