”Dick Cheney’s desperate misleading attacks now have him criticising George Bush’s own words, who called for America to be `sensitive about expressing our power and influence’,” a [Kerry] spokesman said.
”Dick Cheney doesn’t understand arrogance isn’t a virtue. Alienating allies makes it harder to hunt terrorists and bring them to justice.”
Bush has suggested that overhauling the tax code would be a second-term priority if he is re-elected. While campaigning in Florida on Tuesday, he said replacing the income tax with a federal sales tax is “an interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously.”
Kerry seized on Bush’s comments even as White House officials denied that any such plan is under consideration.
Do you really want Bush and a Republican Congress overhauling the tax code and Social Security? mjh
Four years ago, network exit polls found that Bush and Democrat Al Gore split the vote of 18- to 29-year-olds, with Gore claiming 48 percent and Bush getting 46 percent — the best showing by a Republican presidential candidate in more than a decade.
But that was then. In the latest Post-ABC News poll taken immediately after the Democratic convention, Kerry led Bush 2-1 among registered voters younger than 30. Among older voters, the race was virtually tied. …
Surveys suggest that Bush’s popularity has plummeted among 18- to 29-year-olds in the past four months, posing a new obstacle to the president’s bid to win reelection and an immediate challenge to Republicans seeking to win over impressionable and lightly committed young people during their upcoming convention.
As President Bush took office in January 2001, Newsweek asked: “Which one of the following do you think should be Bush’s top defense and national security priority? Should his top priority be: Developing a high-tech missile defense system to protect the United States from nuclear attack (34 percent); reconfiguring US military forces so they can move more quickly to deal with crisis situations around the world (29 percent); or improving our ability to identify and counteract terrorist threats (31 percent)?”
And in May 2001, the Pew Research Center asked: “Do you think that international terrorism is a major threat, a minor threat, or not a threat to the well being of the United States?” Prescient answer: 64% major threat, 27% minor threat, 4% not a threat.
Yet some say we had no idea about the threat of terrorism before 9/11. mjh
