Bush Pulls Out the Stops to Save Ratings

Whether he's before a friendly West Virginia audience, a Cleveland club
proud of its interrogation skills or a White House news conference,
President Bush is drawing on his plainspoken manner in freewheeling venues
to defend his Iraq strategy.


Alternately serious and joking, charming and disarming in this war
anniversary week, Bush is trying to counter election-year critics and
reverse an approval ratings slide.


In Wheeling on Wednesday, the fifth day in a row Bush devoted his remarks to
Iraq, the president bantered with the locals, his shoulders bouncing up and
down as they do when he's pleased with his own jokes. Then he brought down
the house with his trademark I-won't-back-down pledge.


"Let me put it to you this way: If I didn't think we'd succeed, I'd pull our
troops out," Bush said. More than 2,000 supporters - including many
active-duty military and their families - leapt from their seats and filled
the gilded Capitol Music Hall with wild applause.


"I cannot look mothers and dads in the eye, I can't ask this good Marine to
go into harm's way if I didn't believe, one, we're going to succeed, and,
two, it's necessary for the security of the United States," Bush said.


Beginning with a speech last Monday in Washington. and with more planned to
come, the president wants to convince Americans not only that there is
reason for optimism about Iraq's future but that the situation now is better
than the daily reports of strife make it appear.


With national polls showing he has a tough hill to climb - and the upcoming
midterm congressional elections making Republicans nervous - Bush laces his
remarks with nods to both Americans' worries and the grim realities on the
ground in Iraq. The insurgency remains strong, sectarian violence is
spiraling and talks to form a unity government seem stalemated.


The president said at least a half-dozen times here that he understands the
concern about Iraq.


"There was some awful violence. Some reprisals taking place. And I can
understand people saying, `Man, it's all going to - you know, it's not
working out,'" he said.


But, Bush added, standing in front of three large blue-and-yellow "Plan for
Victory" posters: "The way I like to put it is, they looked into the abyss
as to whether or not they want a civil war or not and chose not to. That's
not to say we don't have more work to do, and we do."


The crowd in Wheeling needed little convincing. Another standing ovation was
prompted by a woman who asked Bush what could be done to keep the press from
ignoring progress in Iraq.


"Our major media don't want to portray the good," she said. "If the American
people could see it, there would never be another negative word about this
conflict."


Bush declined the opportunity to tell the media what to publish.


"You're asking me to say something in front of all the cameras here. Help
over there, will you?" he joshed. "Just got to keep talking. Word of mouth."


In Cleveland on Monday, Bush did his talking at the City Club. The questions
got tough at the forum known for taking on world leaders, ranging from Iraq
to his warrantless wiretapping program to a new nuclear deal with India. But
the exchanges allowed Bush to make his case for the war, and earned him a
few laughs and several rounds of enthusiastic applause along the way.


"Anybody work here in this town?" Bush joked at one point as the Cleveland
questioning went on in an appearance that eventually went over 90 minutes.


On Tuesday, Bush called a news conference with the Washington media. But he
rejected the formal East Room in favor of going toe-to-toe with reporters in
the cramped, casual White House briefing room that better suits his style.
The president bantered with an outspoken critic, journalist Helen Thomas,
saying he "semi-regretted" calling on her, and he teasingly accused other
reporters of falling asleep during his speeches.


The sessions follow a December blitz by Bush that succeeded in arresting an
earlier fall in his approval ratings. This time, White House advisers hope
the speaking events, even when they draw the kind of difficult questions
that have occasionally come Bush's way this week, will showcase a president
comfortable with his message, his strategy and his facts.


"It's one of the best chances he has to be effective, to change away from
the Pollyanna-ish characterizations of it being all good news," said Bruce
Buchanan, a University of Texas political scientist who has long observed
Bush.


However, Wayne Fields, a specialist in presidential rhetoric at Washington
University in St. Louis, said, "The problem is that clearly he's doing this
because of the polls and that adds a level of desperation."


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/03/22/national/w145135S2
1.DTL

Bush is losing his base. Bush is begging, "Please, please vote for the
Republicans in November, boo hoo hooooooo".