It is not difficult to see why. George Bush is no Jimmy Carter. Faced with economic and foreign policy crises of his own, he has responded in Reaganesque manner with an aggressive war on terrorism and a series of major tax cuts. The results: No new terrorist attacks in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, and an economy that is beginning to boom again. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll completed Aug. 26 showed that 66 percent of Americans approve of how the president is fighting terrorism. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department estimated last week that the economy grew at 3.1 percent in the second quarter, while many analysts believe it is growing faster than that now.
The USA Today poll put Bush's job approval rating at 59 percent; and it has him leading a generic Democratic challenger, 51 percent to 39 percent.
If the election were this year, the Democrats could not beat Bush in a referendum on the two biggest issues: national security and the economy. They will have little chance of beating him next year unless there is a significant change in the trend in at least one of these areas.
As Hillary observes these trends from the sidelines, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean -- an unabashed left-winger who opposed the Iraq War, wants to repeal the Bush tax cuts, and who signed Vermont's gay civil unions law and would repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act -- is emerging as the Democrat to beat for the nomination. A recent Zogby International poll of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire gave him a 38 percent to 17 percent lead over Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Yet, in the same poll, 64 percent of Democrats said they thought it was likely that President Bush would be re-elected.
Does Hillary share their view? It looks like she's betting the White House on it.