The American public also is showing impatience with the Bush administration's calls for more time and money to reshape Iraq. The president's request for an additional $87 billion to meet the unrelenting challenges in Iraq has struck a sour note with millions of Americans. Dead soldiers can be wrapped in the flag, but the unheroic and unredeeming nature of the appropriations request somehow scraped the gloss off the war and made people think about all its costs.

Virtually overnight, Mr. Bush's approval ratings have slipped to 50 percent, the lowest of his presidency; 47 percent disapproved of the job he is doing, according to a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll last week. More than half of respondents said they disagree with Bush on issues they care most about. Unhappiness with his Iraq policies registered more clearly in polls showing a drop in support for the war to 50 percent; 48 percent currently think the war was a poor idea.

Dallek explains that American animosity toward Bush and his Iraq policies are well-grounded and based on failed promises and fraudulent rationale, with potentially fatal political consequences for Bush:

The administration's unilateral policies have been a serious error. Entering a war in Iraq without a genuine coalition of nations prepared to sacrifice lives and commit money to postwar reconstruction was a fundamental mistake that might yet be rectified with skillful diplomacy. Given the administration's track record, however, it is difficult to have much confidence that it will rise to the challenge. But if it doesn't, it will be watching from the outside after 2004 as a new U.S. government works to alter the course in Iraq and repair the damage done to America's reputation by an unwise and unsuccessful war to remake the Middle East.

See: The Challenge of Planting the Seed of Democracy in Iraq, Robert Dallek, the Washington Post, September 26, 2003: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5337-2003Sep26.html

As economic misery continues and increases, Bush's support evaporates. As Bush spills more American blood and $billions in Iraq, where is the possibility millions of voters will look more kindly on Bush's lack of compassion or competence than they do today?

If anything, these poll rankings are too kind to Bush and will only continue downward. The question is not "Can anyone beat Bush." Almost anyone can. The question is, "Who could still support Bush after all his lies and failures?"
 
Most Americans haven't begun paying attention to politics. They're trying to pay their bills, enjoy their lives, and spending time with their loved ones. Many are watching pennant races, college football, and reality TV shows.

Bush should be rolling up a huge cushion to protect against inevitable up-ticks as voters get to know the Democratic contenders. People will learn the names and faces of a strong Democratic ticket, and begin to pay attention as the Democrats use the spotlight to expose Bush's failures.

As the Presidential Race heats up - first next January as the Primary Season beings, then during the Party Conventions, and leading up to November 3, voters will regard Bush with open eyes. It doesn't matter than most voters won't know the worst parts of Bush's record due to impotent, craven media complicity.

Most Americans already see their prospects dimmed, their income falling, their lives worse, and their children's' future uncertain due to Bush's mismanagement. Almost no one feels safer or better off today than the day Bush stole into the White House. Even if many still like Bush personally, most understand we cannot afford four more years of this.

Most Americans don't know or don't remember the ways Bush left us open to attack. Bush did this when he disparaged our military as "not ready for duty, sir" in his 2000 acceptance speech. He made us vulnerable by ordering our FBI and CIA to "back off" investigations of suspected terrorists including Osama bin Laden's brothers Omar and Abdullah to spare the feelings of Saudi Petrol-Princes.

Bush opened the door to attack when he played footsie with the Taliban hoping to get a pipeline deal for his rich friends by calling back the nuclear submarines President Clinton deployed readied for a chance to kill bin Laden and to keep watch on the terrorists. Our enemies watched Bush, saw weakness, and struck.

As Bush accepts his party's nomination in the shadow of ground zero, most voters don't have to know that the Bush administration ignored dire warnings from the bipartisan Hart-Rudman Commission or that Dick Cheney shirked his duty as Chairman of the Anti-terrorism Task Force, never even meeting once to address the threat from al Qaeda, but found time to collaborate with Enron on a secret energy policy which itself failed miserably.

As the Republicans dance and sing at their party's convention near ground zero, just days before the anniversary of the most horrendous attack against America, the media will not report the irony. Most Americans may never understand the gross hypocrisy as Republicans shamelessly exploit the deaths of thousands in a cheap partisan political photo-op. The media helped elevate Bush, an unqualified unelected fraud who failed in every business, and his dark-hearted henchmen into power. So be it.

After their failure and lies about Iraq, their economic failure and lies about tax cuts for billionaires helping regular Americans, who would actually vote for Bush and Cheney? Not many other than their blindly fanatical base.

Considering this unbroken string of lies and failures, all but the 35% - 40% of Americans, the hard-core Republicans will reject Bush and choose the Democrat. Any Democrat. As it stands now, any Democratic nominee will carry all of the Gore states, and it just takes just one more to send Bush back to Texas.

Bush needed victories in battlegrounds like Arizona, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Arkansas, Missouri and Colorado to keep the election close enough to steal in 2000. He may not carry a single one of those states in 2004. Typically, "Barely one-third of Arizona voters say they would give President Bush a second term, a statewide poll revealed Thursday," according to a recent Arizona Republic report:

The 34 percent support for his re-election, with 44 percent preferring someone else and 22 percent undecided, reflects a dramatic plunge in popularity for Bush. In 2000, he beat Al Gore in Arizona by a margin of 6 percentage points, or nearly 100,000 votes of 1.5 million cast. State Democratic Chairman Jim Pederson said the poll results are evidence that Arizonans are "increasingly frustrated with the Bush administration's performance on both the foreign and domestic fronts."

See: Just a third of Arizonans give thumbs up to Bush second term, Jon Kamman, The Arizona Republic Sept. 25, 2003, http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0925bush-poll-ON.html

This trend appears in several other swing states, because Bush's policies polarize voters. He may do better in stronghold states like Texas, Idaho, and Oklahoma, while losing support among moderate voters in states he needs to win. Unfortunately for Bush, situations both domestic and foreign show only larger and continued deterioration and failure on the horizon.

Aware that most Americans didn't support Bush's policies even before they failed so miserably, Republicans long ago planned to manipulate fear of terrorism and gimmick the election again. Bush supporter and vote machine-maker Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell promised to rig the Ohio vote for the Republicans, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports:

The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.

The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.

See: Voting machine controversy, Julie Carr Smyth, Plain Dealer Bureau, 08/28/03: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/106207171078040.xml

Outmoded voting machines already throw out millions of working class, poor and minority votes. Diebold and other "black box" vote riggers pledge to cheat for Bush in 2004. Astonishing admissions of an alleged conspiracy to commit voting fraud should spark a firestorm of protest against the criminal Republicans, but haven't, raising Karl Rove's hopes a Republican Governor in California and a weeklong photo-op exploiting 9/11 in New York will let Bush carry one or both of those states.

Rove believes legal if unethical schemes combined with crimes and trickery will propel Bush to victory. This remains extremely unlikely. Even if brother Jeb throws out another 100,000 or so Black votes to fix Florida, and even Diebold and other pro-Republican vote machine corporations rig elections as promised, Bush will still lose the Electoral College to any Democrat.

That's even if Iraq and the economy improve. There's little reason to believe either will happen, much less both. Rove himself is under fire for his alleged role betraying CIA agents and compromising American national security in a petty snit, retaliating against an expert who exposed Bush's State of the Union lies about Iraqi efforts to secure uranium from Africa.

Even with the prospects of all these dirty tricks and election crimes, Bush is looking like a sure loser as he was in 2000. This time without hope for unconstitutional help from the right wing five on the US Supreme Court short circuiting the election to sneak Bush into power again. Bush should lose, but that's not enough. It's not enough to let Republicans cheat and fail and call it even.

The Republican Party - rotten from the head to the core - deserves a strong, stinging rebuke from sane Americans who care about their country. Their anti-Americanism from McCarthyism, Watergate, the trumped up impeachment, stolen election, vote tampering, sneaky recalls and racist re-redistricting constitute a sustained hostility and crimes against our Constitution. We must punish these Republican assaults against our republic.

It's time to take back our country, and work for a break-out election to expel right wing rubber-stamp Republicans from Congress, governorships, and state legislatures. All across the board, no Republican deserves to hold office at any level of government. They all actively supported or approved every criminal plan and abuse of power. They share the guilt for the stolen election, dirty tricks, crimes and failures. They all must go.

We must work now for a smashing victory and prepare to follow up with rapid action. We need to clean up the massive messes Bush and his reckless Republicans made of America. It's time to shift focus away from their crimes and corruption to the dream we can recreate. The rebirth of our American Dream rests within our grasp.

Envision our singing hearts and voices rejoicing when we excise these Bush-led criminals like the cancer they are. Imagine the veil of darkness, deceit and depression lifting on the glorious day we remove these corrupt malign Republicans from power.