Bush's bum strategy

President Bush had what seemed to be a good strategy from the beginning: Set a new tone in Washington and overemphasize how he has restored dignity to the White House, compared to the previous administration.

An interesting thing happened; he never got a chance to try it out in the real world of politics. By September of his first year, terror struck America and his approval ratings shot up for the Afghan war and the war in Iraq.

However, in September of 2003, his support for the Afghanistan battle is long gone and support for the war in Iraq has obviously fizzled – and the Middle East isn't a big enough issue to depend on for public support. These three, are essentially, the main issues that have been welcomed and praised by most Americans.

"What about domestic policy," you ask. Well, from what I see, President Bush's work on his domestic agenda has been at least a few bars under a success. Sure, the tax cut was awesome and … ? The fact is that he's gotten beat up on the home front.

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Back to the new tone of Washington: This has been the factor that has held the president back in policy setting – unless, of course, he really set out to be so liberal from the beginning. It's simple; he wanted to gain friends and respect in D.C., but that didn't work out.

Sen. Ted Kennedy is a prime example. Bush has been as nice as he possibly can be with him, inviting him to the White House for personal parties, giving him a huge role in his education platform, and other things, but considering what Kennedy has said recently apparently the feeling isn't mutual.

He called the Bush administration's current Iraq policy "adrift." And, when talking about the war in Iraq, Kennedy said, "There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud."

Kennedy also said, "My belief is this money is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops."

He sounds like quite a friend.

President Bush isn't stupid, so he knows whether his strategy is working – and the new tone has never worked. It looks like all he's doing is avoiding controversy whenever possible to gain political capital.

Thus, I'm beginning to wonder what all his political capital had been saved for – maybe it's just going to rot away. Either this next year is going to be a year that Bush will take strong stands (and such controversy isn't likely in an election year) or he's going to float along and waste his position of authority and possibly go down in the books as a one-term, moderate president – like his dad.

President Bush is no longer unbeatable and the chances of him losing are growing. According to an NCB-Wall Street Journal poll, President Bush's approval ratings have dipped to the lowest his administration has ever seen: 49 percent.

Moreover, according to the latest polling from Newsweek, 43 percent of registered voters say they'd vote for Clark or lean toward Clark, compared to 47 percent who'd vote for Bush or lean toward Bush.

Excluding the tax cut, Bush has all but ignored his conservative base with his new tone with the liberals in D.C. – and it might have worked, but it didn't. He sucked up to the liberal leadership, and they stabbed him in the back.

President Bush has been able to try out his new tone in Washington in the second half of this year, and the success has been less than grand. While it may seem logical to avoid controversy, he has alienated the base that elected him – conservatives. With conservatives unhappy and his so-called "friends" bashing him daily, Bush and his political geniuses need to figure something out.

What they need to figure out is this: A line has been drawn. He either must return to a conservative base or commit to a liberal base.