TONIGHT’S primetime speech is President Bush’s chance to reassure Americans that he’s in charge after Hurricane Katrina, offering both hope and pride.
“We need to know how bad it is – but we want a little good news, too. We’ve heard a lot about how bad Americans are, or some Americans were in Katrina, but we’re not a bad people,” said George Washington University presidential scholar Stephen Hess.
He defines success this way: “You need to feel that Bush is in charge. You’ve got to feel good about your country. And you’ve got to feel that there’s some plan.”
To hear the happy hyperventilation from the Howard Dean hard left (and at times Sen. Hillary Clinton), killer Katrina has already killed Bush’s presidency.
But polls don’t back up those Dem dreams. Independent pollster Scott Rasmussen, who accurately predicted the 2004 vote, has Bush’s job rating at 48 percent positive among adults and notes it would be 2 or 3 points higher in a poll of only likely voters, or 51 percent – his 2004 tally.
Polls also show that Americans – as opposed to TV types – blame Louisiana state and local officials more than Bush, and understand it’s not Bush’s fault that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is no Rudy Giuliani.
That gives the president an opportunity.
But it’s very much a test for Bush since he’s comfortable as a war leader but tends to be uncomfortable as public consoler-in-chief – a role that Bill Clinton relished. Bush does better at consoling people privately.
“This is both a substantive and a stylistic problem for Bush. Stylistically, he needs to convince people that he is in charge now and he gets it now,” said University of Virginia analyst Larry Sabato.
Sabato brushes off talking-head chatter that this is a make-or-break speech, but says: “It’s an important event. It’s one of those moments in his presidency that people want to remember well and he has to give them an opportunity to do so.”