Sooo, Does Bush Get a Bump form the Spanish Thing or Not??

God, you are a hard crowd!! I've been checking back in here, off and on, for two days. DU has been great in latching on to an issue and dissecting it and coming up with a lot of right on predictions. But this time, you seem to be dancing around it--are you afraid?? I've tried to throw stuff out in theads and start ones of my own to find out how you think the events in Spain are going to play with the morons of America; and it's funny that I can't get anyone to analyze what might be a pivotal point in this damn election!! Is it scaring you? Or don't you know what to make of it? Or what? The situation in Spain from the bombings to throwing out the Bush supporters in their government has to be making some ripples back here. As I pointed out, before the events in Spain, more people now (as polls tell us) think Iraq was not worth it. Do the events in Spain change their view or not?? I said that I can't see why any of these people who think the war was not worth it would now change their minds because of this...hell, this proves they were right that things will just get worse. Soooo, do you think the asshole will get a boost in the polls from this, or stay the same, or fall?? And in the long run do you think this is anything that will be a factor in November since Americans can't hold onto any thought for more than a news cycle??? How do you think the next round of "polls" will register??

As in "Presidente Juan Zapatero" ... ?

Maybe now Bush is ... watchin' Johnny, walkin' Spanish down the hall ...

--bkl

Johnny won't be walkin' Spanish anywhere, mainly because his name is José Zapatero.

BareKnuckledLiberal regrets the error. But is still glad that Sr. Z. won the election.

--bkl

In the 30 months since 9/11, his average job approval numbers have risen only TWICE (Iraq war and Saddam capture) - and fallen 28 times.

He will fall again next month, also, since there is nothing in this for him to cheer about. In fact, it may cost him a percent or two.


1Newsweek 2Fox 3CNN 4Pew 5Harris 6CBS 7ABC 8Time 9NBC 10AP 11Zogby

.......1...2...3...4...5...6...7..8..9..10..11..Avg

2001
Feb 52 55 57 53 na 53 55 52 na na 57 ...54.3
Mar 55 56 63 56 56 53 58 55 57 na 53 ...56.2
Apr 57 63 59 53 49 60 63 na 56 na 52 ...56.9
May 57 59 53 50 59 56 55 52 na na 52 ...54.8
Jun na 59 55 51 50 57 na na 50 na 51 ...53.3
Jul na 56 52 52 56 na 59 55 na na 47 ...53.9
Aug na 55 51 50 52 53 55 na na na 50 ...52.3
Sep 86 81 87 80 na na 86 84 82 na 82 ...83.5 TriFecta
Oct 84 80 na 84 88 89 92 89 na na 78 ...85.5
Nov 85 84 87 84 86 87 89 87 88 na na ...86.3
Dec 82 86 86 na 82 85 89 82 85 na 81 ...84.2

2002
Jan na 83 84 80 79 86 86 77 82 77 80 ...81.4
Feb 83 81 82 78 79 84 83 na na na 74 ...80.5
Mar 74 80 81 na 77 82 82 75 na 75 74 ...77.8
Apr 71 79 76 74 75 78 79 75 74 72 69 ...74.7
May 73 72 77 na 74 76 78 72 75 71 70 ...73.8
Jun 70 74 70 70 70 71 77 70 69 na 69 ...71.0
Jul 68 70 76 67 62 70 72 70 67 67 62 ...68.3
Aug 61 69 68 60 63 65 69 na na 65 na ...65.0
Sep 70 66 66 63 68 66 69 65 64 65 na ...66.2
Oct 61 65 67 na 64 66 67 61 63 63 63 ...64.0
Nov 60 68 63 61 65 63 67 64 na na na ...63.9
Dec na 65 64 61 64 61 66 55 na 64 64 ...62.7

2003
Jan 56 63 63 58 na 65 59 53 62 64 na ...60.3
Feb 61 57 61 54 52 59 64 62 54 58 63 ...58.6
Mar 53 60 57 55 na 56 62 54 61 57 62 ...57.7
Apr 71 71 70 67 70 68 71 62 62 51 54 ...65.2 Shock & Awe
May 65 65 69 65 na 67 71 63 71 64 61 ...66.1
Jun 61 66 64 60 61 67 68 na 62 na 58 ...63.0
Jul 55 60 62 58 na 66 59 55 na 60 53 ...58.7
Aug 53 59 60 56 57 60 59 na 56 58 52 ...57.0
Sep 52 58 52 55 na 55 56 52 na 52 45 ...53.0
Oct 51 52 55 50 59 52 54 na 49 51 49 ...52.2
Nov 52 52 54 50 na 54 56 52 51 52 48 ...52.1
Dec 54 52 63 57 50 60 59 54 58 59 53 ...56.3 Saddam Capture

2004
Jan 50 58 60 56 na 50 58 54 54 56 49 ...54.5
Feb 48 48 51 48 51 50 50 54 na 47 na ...49.7
Mar na 48 na na na 47 50 na 50 48 na ...48.6

The Spanish bombings just showed the weakness of his foreign policy, as far as I can see.

its going to take a few days for this whole thing to sink in.

Americans are more concerned about their incomes going away than they are of terrorists.


If Bush keeps supporting outsourcing and helping his rich friends than his numbers won't change.

The only people following the Spain thing are political junkies whose minds are set one way or the other. I suspect most Americans heard about the bombings and then quickly moved on. I would be surprised if that many people even knew there was an election there over the weekend.

(I wasn't always this cynical, but then I learned how many people thought the hijackers were from Iraq....)

M/M J.Q. Public will focus on the bread on their table as opposed to these issues...unless the bread on their table explodes from a terrorist bomb and kills their kin. I agree---midwest America where these puppy is going to be fought is not identifying with this at all. And I think a lot people are saying "Jesus, this asshole is setting off shit all over the place and I'm scared it will affect the economy and my job". After all, the repukes taught us to be greedy and only think of ourselves (must be driving them nuts to ask the people to think in global, international and national terms now).

Sadly, most Americans really don't care about Spain. It's already old news, and will not provide any bump whatsoever.

It does affect how Europe views and treats the US, however. That may have more of an effect on Bush than anything. He's not going to get any special favors from them.

(IMO) Bush is going down anyway.

"Their 9-11" was after at least one unnecessary war; ours was before. Rallying behind a leader and getting revenge seemed like the right thing for many Americans at the time; in Spain, they seem to be saying no to all forms of violence. That protest was beautiful, BTW; caught some of it on BBC.

So it is a turning point there, not so much here. But then I think Bush is history.

it could help because the people here are once again focused on terrorism instead of the tanking economy. I think it depends on who the voter thinks is the better one to protect us from attacks which could help chimp since they seem to 'think' he more able to. :shrug:

I haven't really heard a response from Bush* and Company. I don't think they know how to play it to their advantage. Unfortunately, the media whores seem to be taking up the slack by asking questions like, "Do the results of yesterday's elections in Spain mean that the terrorists won?"

I don't think we'll know the political implications for Bush* for at least a couple of weeks and I think it also depends on whether there are more attacks around the world or if things calm down for a while. I think most people here aren't sure what this whole thing means and I count myself in that number.

but Latin America as well. Maybe even in Estado Unidos. Short run, Bush might get a bump but in the long run he now has a world leader saying talking against him, in real Spanish.

"Do the results of yesterday's elections in Spain mean that the terrorists won?" is, No, the people of Spain won.

1) Affect the election? As far as * getting a boost? No. I think alot of people in this country feel for the Spanish, having been there ourselves. However, I don't think it'll touch the election much, if at all. It seems the economy and Bush's honesty are going to be the pivotal issues of this election.

2) Well this moron (oh, and thanks for that - ye of undetermined origin!:mad:) in America has a long memory indeed. And I think Spain will figure prominently in November, but not favoring Bush. I think there have been too many scandals and evidence of war profiteering to give Bush a pass in November. His inept leadership has done nothing concrete to keep us same from terrorist attacks. He has strutted his way around the world stage like the cowboy many accuse him of being. Now that one of his coalition members has been brutally attacked. What has he done?

I forsee the elections following the ideological lines they always follow. There have been some Repubs that have jumped ship because of Bush's behavior, but not enough to sway anything a great deal.

Happy now?

9.11, itself.
Invading Iraq.
Saddam's capture.

He has been sliding continuously except for the polls directly after these events.

Spain is another country. Most Americans don't care what's going on in other countries. He'll keep sliding, imho.

(A la "peaking" too soon, like using your "trick plays" in the first quarter of the SuperBowl - pre-Janet-Jackson).

They're playing the "we're getting warmer - RED HOT!" card now.

B* does not get a bump from the Spanish thing. OK. There are still terrorists in the world and they still hate us and they hate our allies and they are going to wake up tomorrow and still hate us, and believe it or not they are still planning to blow up more stuff and no matter how many of them we kill there will be more and more to take their place. Taking out Saddam Husein has not tempered the hatred of Al Quaida towards America. Nor has giving Iraq its "freedom". It has not made Spain or Britain or Australia any safer. Have the terrorists won in Spain? Of course not. Have the Spanish people had their fill of lying politicians? It appears so. Will America react in a like manner? Only time will tell. Besides noone here has a crystal ball that tells the future, but there are some very smart people here, and as you have stated some of the predictions here are "right on". Sometimes these predictions take some time.

that terrorism isn't an enemy a la WWII, etc. but an uncontrollable cancer. Nip it here and there, but it's going to be here just like auto accidents happen. Hopefully they can see that the best we can do is cooperate with other nations to police it as much as possible and expect we will still have strikes. And hopefully they can see that actions like Bush takes only makes it flare from remission stage into active stage. I know, it's so unAmerican to talk about just containing it as much as possible and trying to keep as much from igniting as possible. But the idiots who think you can irradicate it like winning WWII are totally dillusional morons. The best any of us in this world can expect is a world wide effort to apply chemo and radiation in such dosages as to keep it in control.

and much like cancer the cure (at least bush's idea of a cure) is almost as likely to kill you as the disease.

I agree completely. Welcome to DU btw.

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should join us in invading all those rotten countries of the middle east?? My former husband virtually lived in the middle east as a corporate USA man making the deals with the "towel heads". He predicted back in the 70's that the elements were there to keep international business dealings in turmoil by the use of terror. Corporations factored that into their bottom line. Back then they knew the best thing that could be done was containment; but they knew erradication was impossible and they just hoped that some goddamn moron didn't flip things from containable to a fucking call to jihaad!! We found the moron...and isn't is just priceless that the moron was a republican (as in up to the pits in bed with corporate America). I guess that's the only thing I can really laugh about. 9/11 could have been contained on the world scene with just a big effort to track down al Qaaeda. We turned it into a a nuclear explosion.

When you compare it to GWB and his Keystone Cops "Operation Piss Off The Planet" routine.

Seriously how can anybody do worse.

I would like to know HOW you are supposed to win this ridiculous war. When EVERY "terrorist" is killed or captured? They still don't have any of the 9/11 ones not to mention Bali or Madrid. And what the hell did Iraq have to do with it. The whole bad situation was just made worse by the endless lies and manipulations of this administration.

"Cut and run" that is just childish. When the Spanish PM says "This occupation is a disaster" he is just being honest. People who think this was worth it are delusional.

If you factor in third party voters and even non-voters, it is very clear that this country is in fact NOT split evenly down the middle, rather there is a somewhat considerable leftward lean. The pugs sure will want to perpetuate the myth that its an even split though, right down the middle, in order to get away with their trickery, won't they? Are you sure you're in the right place? Welcome to DU.

Your portrayal of the Spaniards as weak and cowardly is off base. The Socialist govt. that preceded Aznar's govt. fought ETA hard -- to the point of employing death squads, which discredited them and helped lead to their ouster. Aznar's govt. has also been very harsh toward ETA, refusing to negotiate with them. So where do you get the idea that Spaniards are weak on terrorism? They have been dealing with it since 1968, and they have made progress.

ETA is not now nor has it ever "bombed the hell" out of Spain. It has never killed more than the 21 people killed in the Barcelona supermarket, to my knowledge, and most of its attacks have killed one person or a handful of people. Most of the time, the targets were military, police, or political figures.

You claim that the Spanish govt. "has surrendered." Huh? They lost a free and fair election. Stop spinning.

Is that some foreign country? Sadly if it doesn't happen on this side of the Atlantic it pretty much doesn't matter.

Ultimately I don't think these attacks will play much of a role in our elections. At worst continued terror attacks will only strengthen bush.

it just goes to show that all his claims about winning the war on terror is nothing but bullshit rhetoric...he hasn't done a thing except anger the exsisting terrorists and pissed off just about every country in the world...almost every country...

It just goes to show that the American people have been suckered and this man has stole billions for his buddies and himself and we and everyone else around the world are cannon fodder...

that's my $.02

He has his 16 million dollar ad smear plus some 150 million post cards going out in the snall mail. He will frame Spain's election as a warning not to give the terrorists a free pass and he will get most of his bump from the Media whores who will certainly glamorize the war at its 1 year anniversary. But, "it's the economy stupid" and in two weeks that will once again creep back in to politics. It is my belief that the economy is heading downward again and the Spanish attack did not help. Today the DJIA dropped 137 points, dropped 355 last week, all other major indesces lost big as well,(most of it before the bombing) and the job situation is still flat.

I think they seem desperate and distressed about it.

.....would have been had our intelligence services prevented the attack. As it stands now, Al Qaeda has once again served as the perfect example of the ineffectiveness of our intelligence agencies. They were totally blindsided by the existence of this 'new' AQ group, or so the story goes. Bush* has spent so much of our intel resources setting up the neocon agenda of spying on American citizens, collecting so much data as part of their Total Information Awareness, (TIA) that all of our agencies are in disarray suffering from information overload.

If Bush* had stuck to the goal of tracking down Osama and Al Qaeda instead of staging an illegal invasion of the wrong country, we might actually all be a little safer. But alas......:scared:

but it will bring into sharp relief that islamic terrorism is no police matter as Candidate Kerry suggested.

another country or two will take care of it?

yes, it IS a military matter.
no, the solutions are far more complex than that.

Should we just invade all countries (they all have these bastards in their nation)?? One problem, honey, we will run out of money as a nation if we have go ivade other countries and then have to babysit another one of these nations like we have done in Iraq. There's more than one way to bring a super power to destruction, you know. We could have had this type of cooperation if we had just been about our business tracking al Qaeda after 9/11 and didn't use it as a nifty was to start a war for our oil barron friends. Now we have a mess. We can never win this war...this isn't an invasion by country X Y or Z. All we can do is get as many nations together, pooling their intelligence resouces (hopefully better than our own Key Stone Cops) and tracking, arresting and imprisoning as many terrorists of all kinds of varieties. Wake up to reality: terrorism happens just like auto accidents happen. We try to limit the number of accidents by patrol cars, laws against drunk driving, speed limits, etc.; but they still happen. Actually if we want to prevent them all together we could outlaw vechicles. Unfortunately, we don't even have that kind of luxury when it comes to terorists. We need one mother fucking big alliance on this matter and we have the asshole who has turned off every nation on planet earth.

this calls for soldiers and statesmen, not Barney Fife and Andy.

another one of those spectacular "coaltions of the willing"??? Kerry wasn't talking about going to bed and telling the NYC cops to contact the Madrid cops, the London cops, etc. He was talking about getting governments together, and Interpol, to pool info and track these cells. Arrest, send military spot reactions to some areas, and the like. Just to go get liquored up and attack an entire country is getting us into financial shit if nothing else. And in this case, for god's sake, we didn't even go there for terrorists. We wasted valuable goodwill, troops and money for oil barrons and other's intrested in Iraqi loot. If that's an example of statemanship and intelligence than we are in deep poop. I guess the alternative is to just nuke everyone; but damn, what are we going to do about the ones living here?????

we don't need to invade, in less infested countries we can partner with the government to bring our military expertise to bear.

the islamic terrorists choose countries without the abilty or desire to fight them. if we provide the ability, things can get done as is finally beginnig to happen in Pakistan. They finally got serious about cooperation after they got caught selling secrets and we are partnering to weed out the vermin.

People are disobeying all over the place and there is
Jack Schitt he can do about it, he doesn't even know how
the Hell he's going to get us out of Iraq without looking
like we were booted out. He's toast. Burnt toast.
The rally around the pResident stuff is over.
The rats are all looking for liferafts and floating debris
as we speak. Can you imagine what's going through
the head of that weasel we just installed in Haiti?

Edit: the US voter NEVER forgives pResidents that look weak.

I will have completely lost faith in them.

Shrub's "popularity" should go right down the tubes, if people are paying attention.

But, you're right: many people have the attention span of a gnat - and the analytical ability of one.

the Iraq adventure was a distraction from more important international issues: the Spanish tragedy shows the criticism was correct. * is errant and impulsive; TANG worried about it in the 1970s, and the public is now noticing it too.

being called a "moron." (sic)

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I was truly amazed at how quickly the Spanish can make the connection between creating war in the middle east and having middle eastern terrorists want to destroy their way of life... Its sad that we can't wake up that quickly and demand answers about what really happened on 9/11 and why we really went to war in Iraq.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Of course I don't understand the minds of people who would support Bush in the first place.

he will get a slight bounce (~3%), but not nearly as high as that CBS poll claimed.

Ultimately, Americans won't be voting for or against Bush based on an attack overseas. I doubt even an attack on American targets overseas would really affect his poll numbers greatly.

I think that the recent flap over "world leaders wanting me elected" may have hurt Kerry a slight bit. It's the kind that gets the base sort of excited but doesn't do anything for most independents. Many may think it's irrelevant what other country's leaders think of the president. I think Kerry should probably drop it, for the simple reason that by not saying which leaders (though we can take a guess which ones), it leaves too much room for speculation. On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with him calling the republicans crooked -- since he didn't back down.

I found the Spanish elections very interesting, people should vote on historical facts and not there passions. But I am kind of confused on something with this whole bombing blame deal. If the terrorist were behind this bombing, and according to Kerry, Iraq has no connections with terrorist, then why would the terrorist give a rats butt if we or Spain are in Iraq, if that is why they bombed Spain. According to that information given to us by Kerry, if it is true, then you would assume the terrorist would want us spending our time and resources in the country of Iraq, the place that they have nothing to do with. Ya can't have it both ways the way I see it.

What is your theory about what happened in Madrid?

It was Islamic terrorist im sure, and they are running out of places to hide in the world awfull quickly. They probably still have the capabilities to make a few more last ditch attemps at there pathetic causes, but not for long the way things are going. The point is, it was the Islamic Facist extremist, they were mad at Spain because Iraq was a nest for them, and Kerry is wrong.

In case you're not familiar with the globe, Iraq is in the middle east. The islamists do NOT WANT western culture in the middle east. They are purusing Islamic Theocracy. Western countries exerting influence there is anathema to them.

That's such a simple conclusion, i'm quite surprised you didn't reach it on your own. (Or Maybe Not)



The Professor

In case your not familiar with the globe, Iraq is in Southwest Asia, but us great Americans do like to refer to it as the Middle East though. I believe since Islam is a religion it gets capitalised, but you are correct in saying that the dominant religous fanatics of that area do not like western culture or influences, because with it they could not control the weak. For evil to exist in the world the strong must stand by and do nothing. We have religous nuts here in America, and have dealt with them accordingly, maybe we should send Janet Reno in there to take care of them.
As far as I can tell there is no such thing as a simple conclusion when religon gets involed, this is a holy war and the sooner that is realised by the masses the sooner it will end.(Or maybe not)

Uneducated mule packer

The real reason the Spaniards decide to change was because the gov't failed to protect the people from a terrorist attack and then lied to them about who the attack came from. They sought to blame the Spanish rebels when it was really Al-Queda.

The equivalent here would be Bush blaming the Dems for another attack that he has had more than 3 years to prevent.

it will make little difference. Those in America who are most fervently against the war are voting Dem/3rd party no matter what. Those who supported the war wholeheartedly are unlikely to change their mind, if anything this bombing will reinforce their belief that American needs to take the fight to the enemy. As for the swing voter, Kerry's stance on the IWR has pretty much taken the issue off the table. And besides, if someone is marginally unhappy about the war, they are unlikely to switch because Spain got bombed. The swing voter is likely to switch because of the economy, or if there is another attack within the US itself - not because of terror abroad.

V

in custody. Ask Spain if they are safer now. I'm sure any critical thinker will see the hypocrisy there. When was the last time Spain had a serious terrorist attack like this? Funny it happened after Saddam was captured and not before. Is there any Credibility left at all with this current Administration? I think Americans are starting to see the truth and even if another event like this were to happen in America Bush* will be toast. He is showing every day that the world is far less safe since he has been in office.

Honduras says it will follow Spain's lead, withdraw troops from Iraq in June...

:headbang:
rocknation

Americans let themselves be easily controlled by the terrorists because of irrational fear AND a tendency to see only two sides to everything. Our policy of "not negotiating with terrorists" is taken many steps further by not giving the terrorists anything they want - by doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Bushco says the terrorists want. In that sense, the "terrorists" control the agenda.

An oversimplified & inaccurate picture of what happened in Spain is the one being painted by the media & smear maching - and it's the one that will stick out in most americans minds - the Socialists won because they wanted to appease the terrorists. Terrorists bad. Socialists bad. Spain bad. Spain weak. It's udder BS, but that's the most obvious cause/effect to most Americans - many DU-ers included. Plus, they GOP started spinning almost immediately. Our side always have a disadvantage because we wait for facts before we make our opinions public.

So by planting the seeds that the terrorists would want Kerry (the terrorists probably don't give a shit, but the rest of the free world would prefer Kerry), many are conditioned to want the opposite. That simple. This is also why Kerry is being taken to task on which leaders endorsed him. So Bush can say - France?! (or whatever country you pick) well, we don't take orders from France. We're 'mericans. (so then they do the opposite).

It would take years to undo the sickness of uncritical & dualistic thought Americans suffer from. Can't be done in an election cycle.

It reminds the Americans about terror and for some twisted reason they still don't comprehend that * made the world a much less safe place. The press doesn't point out that there was no connection between AQ and Iraq prior to the invasion, hence there would have been no attack in Spain but for the invasion, so Bush wins all the way around.

Without a free and fair press * will win them all.