THE TROUBLE WITH

THE TROUBLE WITH "W"
by Columnist Bruce Bartlett

According to the latest poll by ABC News and The Washington Post, almost all of Mr. Bush's decline in support has come from his base. He is not losing support from moderates, nor is Mr. Kerry gaining at his expense. Rather, Mr. Bush is simply losing his own people. I believe this has nothing to do with Iraq. I think it is because conservatives have slowly come to the conclusion he is really not one of them. It is the cumulative effect of a great many issues dating back to the 2000 campaign. Among them:

President Bush supported ‘compassionate conservatism,’ which implied unqualified conservatism is uncompassionate, as liberals have always charged.
He rammed through Congress an education bill written by Ted Kennedy that did almost nothing to improve education. It just threw more money at the problem. And now liberals complain he didn't throw enough.
He signed a campaign finance ‘reform’ bill that almost all conservatives view as blatantly unconstitutional, the Supreme Court's endorsement notwithstanding.
He has supported vast increases in domestic spending, including a huge, utterly unjustified pork barrel and an unconscionable expansion of Medicare, adding trillions of dollars to unfunded U.S. liabilities. And he has asked for more spending on ridiculous programs like the National Endowment for the Arts, which ought to be abolished, not expanded.
Although he twisted arms strenuously to get the Medicare drug bill passed, President Bush has done almost nothing to get conservative judges confirmed.
He has been ambivalent on trade — some days a free trader, other days a protectionist. He has succeeded only in alienating all sides on this issue.

“I could go on. But the point is there are many reasons for conservatives to be upset with Mr. Bush that have nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq. Fortunately for him, John Kerry is worse on every one of these issues.”