(Host) Will the unfolding corporate scandals erode support for President Bush and boost Democratic prospects in the fall elections? Commentator Jeff Wennberg isn’t so sure.
(Wennberg) According to Roll Call magazine, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt recently told senior House Democrats that if the corporate scandals can be kept on the front pages until November, the Democrats could pick up as many as 40 House seats in this year’s elections.
The New York Times has published a column accusing President Bush of shady land dealings and cronyism in Texas. Just about everyone has heard about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation into the Dick Cheney’s stock transactions while preparing to leave Halliburton Corporation to seek the vice presidency.
Will the crisis of confidence in corporate leadership, coupled with the traditional perception that Republicans in general – and Bush in particular – are too close to Big Business, finally make George W. Bush politically vulnerable? Is this the silver bullet the Democrats have sought since Bush’s job approval rating skyrocketed after September 11? Perhaps.
Columnists and editorial writers leapt at a recent CBS poll indicating that 58 percent of Americans believe that Bush is “influenced too much by big business.” But the same poll found that 70% of Americans continue to approve of the president’s job performance, 68% believe Bush cares about the needs of the people, and 80% say the president shares American’s moral values. So while there is concern that the president may listen too much to the wrong people, the crisis of confidence in corporate America has yet to sully our favorable view of George Bush’s character.
How is this possible? Well, when another poll asked who was more responsible for the corporate scandals, 33% blamed Bush; but 40% blamed Bill Clinton. Now former President Clinton has hardly been mentioned in connection with this scandal, so Americans are clearly reaching this conclusion without the benefit of media spin’ or drumbeat, nearly all of which has been directed at Bush. Why Clinton?
The answer can be found in an ABC News poll released on July 16. When asked what the major factors were that led to the corporate scandals, 88% said “greed among executives,” and 74% blamed a “lack of morals in society.” Bush himself suggested that a broad moral failure is partly to blame; a belief that is shared by more than seven out of ten Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike, including 73% of liberal Democrats and 82% of conservative Republicans.
Perhaps Americans understand that we’re suffering a hangover from the Clinton philosophy that nothing’s a problem unless we make it a problem. Like the threat of terrorism, these corporate abuses have grown in the shadows for years, gradually accelerating in both audacity and criminality until something had to give.
And like the war on terrorism, Bush will be judged by his response to this crisis. But efforts to blame him for it’s origins are likely to backfire.
This is Jeff Wennberg, in Rutland.
Read the companion commentary by David Moats.