Democrats, for their part, argue that the economic gains aren't reaching ordinary Americans and they have tried to dull the luster of the tax cuts by focusing on their high cost. The projected budget deficit for fiscal 2004 is US$500 billion, which would far surpass the record deficit of US$374 billion registered in fiscal 2003.
"This is not a recovery for the working American," Senator John Kerry, who finished first among the Democrats in the Iowa caucuses, said after Bush's rosy State of the Union speech this week. "This is a Wall Street, Bush-league recovery."
In fact, the economy has lost about 2.3 million jobs under Bush, the worst job creation record of any president since Herbert Hoover.
The Democrats also have leveled unrelenting criticism at Bush for the failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and for his handling of the postwar situation there. More than 500 US service members have died since the US-led coalition launched the war on March 20, with most of those deaths occurring since major combat operations ended.
The first Bush, for his part, had sky-high approval ratings after successful prosecution of the Persian Gulf War in January 1991. But by the time of his 1992 re-election campaign, "people had forgotten about it," Black said.
Foreign policy is one area where this Bush doesn't measure up to his father in public opinion polls, although his ratings still are positive. The Gallup Poll puts the current Bush's approval rating for foreign policy matters at 58 percent, compared to 64 percent for his father in January 1992.
Duffy, the Democratic strategist, said his advice for Democratic candidates on how to counter Bush is to stay focused on winning their party's nomination for now "and then worry about how to climb the mountain later." After all, he said, even with all that the first President Bush had going against him in 1992, back in January few thought Bill Clinton had much of a chance of beating him.
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