Republicans waiting for Bush to sharpen his focus
By Wayne Washington, Globe Staff, 2/20/2004

WASHINGTON -- Republicans are increasingly worried about President Bush's reelection prospects as he struggles to combat questions about his credibility and as some polls released this week indicate that he is trailing his Democratic rivals by significant margins.

Members of the president's party said he must better control the information coming out of the administration -- which in the last two weeks has been forced to backtrack on an assertion that "outsourcing" jobs overseas is good for the economy and on an overly rosy jobs forecast. They also want him to control surging government spending that has opened him up to charges of fiscal irresponsibility.

A poll released yesterday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center indicated sharp increases in the numbers of voters concerned about the rising deficit and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That poll indicated Bush was tied with Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts in a prospective matchup, but others indicated Kerry was far ahead -- 12 percentage points in a CNN poll by the Gallup organization.

"I would describe the mood among conservatives right now as frightened," said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group that supports Republican policies.

Republicans who expressed concern about Bush's prospects point out that the president has eight months to improve his standing before facing voters and that criticism of the president has gotten a lot of attention from the news media as Democratic candidates compete for their party's nomination.

But they add that many of the president's problems have been self-inflicted. The concerns about job creation and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been exacerbated by his administration's refusal to acknowledge the extent of the problems. His appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" was weak, they said. And his administration has failed to control federal spending, contributing to a budget deficit that has exploded past $500 billion.

"For the first time," said a top staff member for a GOP senator, "some Republicans are facing the prospect that the president could lose."