October is unkind to Bush
Bad news piles up during days leading to the election
Chuck Raasch
Gannett News Service
Oct. 11, 2004 12:00 AM
ST. LOUIS - Could an October surprise have already hit President Bush?
Troubling headlines, coupled with his opponent, Sen. John Kerry, performing well in the first two debates with Bush, may have turned a Bush advantage of mid-September into an October clinch.
Just over three weeks before the election, Bush is not running against Kerry as much as against events that are largely out of his control. advertisement
Consider:
• A report released Friday indicated that the economy was still producing new jobs but not at the level many economists had expected and not at the level Bush had hoped for. Republicans produced a new ad that says nearly 2 million (actually 1.8 million) new jobs have been created over the past year. But critics pointed out that a net loss of 800,000 jobs has occurred during Bush's watch.
• Recent Iraq news has been toxic for Bush. Democrats seized on a new report last week by U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer that said Saddam Hussein had abandoned his chemical, nuclear and biological weapons programs in the early and mid-1990s, long before Bush, citing a gathering danger, ordered an invasion in 2003. Republicans focused on Duelfer's assertion that Saddam intended to restart illegal weapons programs after he outlasted U.N. sanctions....
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