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The Morning Grind / DayAhead |
Sputtering in the polls; watching your language
Bush approval down; Dems to dismiss 'liberal' label?
By Steve Turnham
CNN
 |  Number crunching: A new poll has John Kerry leading President Bush 49 percent to 48 in a head-to-head matchup. |
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| | ON CNN TV | 
Stay with CNN-USA for ongoing updates on the controversy over abuse of prisoners in Iraq, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld prepares to testify Friday before the House and Senate Armed Services Committee. |
VIDEO |
 Gallup's Frank Newport on a poll indicating Bush's job approval is falling.
 CNN's Jamie McIntyre on Donald Rumsfeld under pressure.
 CNN's Bruce Morton on presidential apologies and non-apologies.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new Gallup poll out this morning shows Americans' approval of President Bush's handling of a wide range of issues at the lowest point of his presidency. But that's not enough to break the deadlock in the presidential race.
The Gallup Poll, conducted Sunday to Tuesday, as the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was dominating the news, shows approval of Bush's job at 49 percent, tying his lowest-ever Gallup rating.
And that's good compared with his numbers on specific issues. The poll shows his approval rating on Iraq at 42 percent (down 6 points in two weeks), on the war on terror at 52 percent (down 8 points), on foreign affairs at 42 percent (down 4 points), and at 41 percent on the economy (down 5 points despite a slew of indicators showing the economy growing fast). Asked whether they're satisfied with the way things are going in the country, 62 percent said no.
All of those measures are the worst of his presidency. John Kerry seems to have benefited from the president's slide, but not as much as he has in the past.
In a head-to-head matchup Kerry is now up 49 percent to Bush's 48 percent (two weeks ago Kerry trailed by 5 points). Throw Ralph Nader in the mix and Kerry and Bush are deadlocked at 47 percent, with Nader drawing 3 percent.
The last time Bush's approval rating hit 49 percent, in early March, Kerry was beating him by 9 points. The fact that the race is now tied suggests that the concerted attacks on Kerry have worked. We'll see if Kerry's $27 million effort to put himself in a more positive light can bump him back up.
Today the senator wraps up his three-day education tour by unveiling a new initiative, the "New Bargain for America's Children and Teachers."
Kerry will say he intends to retain or recruit 500,000 teachers in his first term. The highlights: a raise of up to $5,000 for teachers in schools and subjects where they're scarce; training to keep teachers up to standard; and a "Great Strides" incentive program to reward schools that turn themselves around.
Decoding the Democrats
Democrats are being advised to run like hell from the liberal label, and instead recast themselves as "progressives," according to a private report by the liberal think tank The Center for American Progress.
The report, based on extensive voter focus groups and a private national poll, found that the right has succeeded in defining Democrats as liberal. And that, apparently, is very bad. "The word liberal is associated closely with a well-meaning, admirable, but ultimately weak, naive, and ineffective approach to politics and governance," said the report, which was presented last week to a closed meeting of Senate Democrats.
It advised a concerted party effort to adopt a new label, "progressive," which, while still poorly defined, "is overwhelmingly associated with positive attributes."
The Center for American Progress is run by former Clinton administration Chief of Staff John Podesta and is often described as an ideas factory for a possible '08 campaign for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The report offers some practical advice:
Use the terms "middle class" and "for the people by the people;" never say that government is the solution to our problems; call on Americans to sacrifice for the greater good; invoke "moral" and "religious" values and say: "We believe in taking strong military action if we are threatened."
The right, according to the report, should be defined as: at war with the middle class; not "for the people"; all about money, materialism and individual gain; driven by an out-of-touch interpretation of religion and morality; following the Iraq model of foreign policy.
Progressives are "innovative," and "creative." Their tone should be "positive," "forward-thinking" and "young." They're "tough" and "responsible." Conservatives are "out-of-touch," "old" [the seniors will love that one], "incapable of change," "extreme" and "partisan."
The presentation went over very well, according to sources who were at the closed meeting.
