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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 14NATIONIs Bush Losing the Numbers Game?
As the jobless figure goes up, his standing in the polls heads
down
Matthew Beck, a deputy sheriff from Pleasanton, Calif., stood
up in the White House Rose Garden Wednesday morning and asked
George Bush a question that's been on a lot of Americans' minds
lately. "I'd like to know," Beck said, "why I should vote for
you."
"That's a good one," Bush replied, as if Beck had just got
off a real knee slapper. "That is good."
The President then launched into what has become the
essential message of his re-election bid: "I think in the final
analysis people are going to say, `Who has the experience, who
has the temperament to take on these big problems day in and day
out?' Not that I'm perfect, but I've got a proven record of
being tested by fire. I think that's a good reason to ask for
some more time as President." Basically, explains the Chief
Executive's general campaign chairman, Robert Mosbacher, with
a fine disregard for grammar, Bush "will be the lesser of three
evils."
That the White House has begun to resort to that least
persuasive of arguments fully four months before the election
suggests how clouded Bush's political future has become. The
President of late seems more melancholy than usual, flashing
with uncharacteristic anger in public, seemingly haunted by
unseen furies. At a political fund raiser in Detroit last week,
he complained that this "weird, peculiar" political season
comprised little more than "endless polls, weird talk shows,
crazy groups every Sunday telling you what you think." But less
than 48 hours later, Bush himself was appearing live from the
Rose Garden on the CBS This Morning show. The network's
producers had plucked 125 somewhat perplexed people from a White
House tour to ask questions while the Commander in Chief shifted
uncomfortably on a wrought-iron lawn chair.
Bush knew he had to go on the offensive. A day later, the
Labor Department would report that the nation's unemployment
rate had risen in June to 7.8%, the highest in more than eight
years. Bush called the jobless rate a "lagging indicator" in a
recovering economy. But within an hour of the department's
announcement, the Federal Reserve dropped the prime rate by half
a point, to 3% -- the lowest level since 1963 -- in yet another
attempt to jump-start a sputtering economy. But that news
eventually drove stock prices lower as investors feared that the
combination of more unemployed workers and falling interest
income would conspire to depress corporate earnings.
The bad economic news may also explain new polls, released
last week, that show a continuing slide in Bush's standing. A
Washington Post-ABC News survey for the first time put Bill
Clinton in the lead with 31%, followed by Ross Perot with just
a fraction less and Bush with 28%.
Meanwhile, a summary of 41 statewide polls by the Hotline,
a daily report on politics, shows that Perot is leading in 22
states to Bush's 12 -- enough to carry the Electoral College.
Clinton, the Hotline said, was ahead in only four states, but
that was twice what he held in the Hotline's last survey.
With Clinton's apparent bump in the polls stemming at
least partly from several weeks of bad press for both Bush and
Perot, the Arkansas Governor prudently stuck to his low-profile
strategy. He concentrated instead on choosing a running mate and
seemed to be narrowing his focus to two well-respected Capitol
Hill veterans: Tennessee Senator Al Gore, who has strong
defense and environment credentials, and Indiana's veteran
Congressman Lee Hamilton, a foreign policy expert regarded as
one of the House of Representatives' wisest heads. If the job
goes to either man instead of an upstart newcomer like
Pennsylvania Senator Harris Wofford or Nebraska Senator Bob
Kerrey, Clinton will be betting that even in a "weird" political
year, more voters value Washington experience than resent it.
Late last week, when Bush -- as expected -- vetoed the
"motor voter" bill that would have required all states to allow
voter registration when citizens apply for drivers' licenses or
government benefits, Clinton was ready with a quip. "With 10
million Americans out of work," he said, "no wonder the
President doesn't want to make it easier to vote." Bush's
argument that the bill was needlessly bureaucratic and open to
fraud was expected, but oh so uncomfortable in a season of such
discontent.