Michael Patterson: Bush's war jeopardizes base support

I was recently speaking with my parents about the upcoming elections. Speaking with my religious-fundamentalist family ranks just above my all time pastime of playing with deadly cobras while in small, cold dark spaces. To my complete surprise, my latest conversations with my parents regarding the presidential election have been filled with a tone of agreement.

In fact, my parents are actually as fed up with President Bush as I am. I'll repeat that - my conservative religious-right anti-choice Republican parents are as fed up with good ol' Dubya as I am. How could this be? Normally my parents love a particular politician for the same reasons that I hate that same one. In the case of my parents, however, Bush went too far when he invaded Iraq and send hundreds of Americans to their deaths.

Just a few months ago, the one thing that one could hear the president speak about was the Iraq war and the freeing of Iraqis from Saddam Hussein. Before large crowds of cheering supporters, President Bush would speak about stopping Hussein from acquiring "weapons of mass destruction." Bush and Cheney also continued floating the idea that there was some sort of Iraq/al-Qaeda connection. The groundswell of public support for the president and his administration seemed to have no ending in sight. At least, that is, until the September 11 Commission, Abu Ghraib, and the persistent death trap that our involvement in Iraq has become.

This election year, the polls continue to show uncertainty on the part of the American people. While thus far the race for President comes out as being a statistical dead-heat, there remains a large segment of the population that are uncomfortable with the policies of the Bush administration. The interesting thing about the polls comes not simply when the people are asked about their choice for president between the two candidates but in the responses regarding specific issues.

Most of the latest poll numbers show President Bush enjoying popular support on very few key issues. For example, take what was once considered President Bush's number one reelection issue -- the Iraq War. According the latest Gallup poll, half of all Americans think the Iraq war was not worth the consequences while 47 percent say it was worth it. This is a dramatically sharp contrast from six months before when 63 percent of American's said it was worth going.

Even the traditionally Republican military base is shrinking. As written in the July 21 edition of The Washington Post, the increasing pessimism of military voters is growing into a possible threat all unto itself for the President's chances in November. Military families have grown weary of their loved ones serving ever increasing tours of duty, sometimes double to triple the time they were originally expecting.

Now that the original case for war that President Bush and his so-called "Vulcans" -- Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Undersecretary of Defense Wolfowitz, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice -- made such a passionate plea for has dissipated out of reality, the president has a bit of a problem on his hands. That problem: what has he left to campaign on for reelection?

Fighting the "War on Terrorism" might be one option. This has been a hallmark of Bush's entire presidency. Unfortunately for Bush, the September 11 Commission's report has thrown strong doubt on even this possible argument for the reelection of the president.

Given that terrorism and the Iraq war have grown to be somewhat of a liability for Bush, we the people can now watch the stark differences that have arisen in the last few months. Before the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, Donald Rumsfeld was a prominent voice of the administration. As of recently, however, one might notice that he has become something of a pariah, making fewer and fewer appearances. Condoleezza Rice also has been seemingly MIA in recent weeks and months.

It would almost seem that Bush wants to distance himself from everything (and everyone) associated with his blunders in foreign policy. Instead, the focus of the administration has shifted from war and terrorism to more united topics, like same-sex marriage, abortion, and the like. Who can blame them? The President has very few positive points at the moment on which to run with, so he must instead go on showing what domestic issues sharply separate him from the "liberal" likes of John Kerry and John Edwards. If he can prove that a Kerry administration would lead to the evils of same-sex couples who are in love being able to get married, then perhaps more of his base will vote for him. If the people think that abortion will proliferate with a Democratic executive branch, then just maybe a few more of the religious-right will overlook the blood-shed of Bush's war mongering.

For people such as my parents, the Iraq war and the deaths of young American's outweighs traditional Republican conservative stances. Despite Bush's best efforts, my parents and others like them have been permanently lost by our president. Pro-life, born again Christian or not, the votes of my parents are two that George W. Bush will not be getting this election year, and I doubt that they are alone.

Michael Patterson is a senior political science and philosophy major from Balch Springs, Tex.

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