Buckeye Blues

With just over three months until Election Day, White House political adviser Karl Rove hit the campaign trail Tuesday in Ohio, hoping to rev up voters in a state where polls show President George W. Bush and the GOP is in real trouble. Bush’s top political aide was the guest of honor at a $100-a-plate luncheon in Columbus to benefit county parties in central Ohio, a state that is viewed as ground zero in the GOP’s attempts to maintain control of Congress.

A poll released over the weekend showed that Sen. Mike DeWine , a moderate Republican who has notably distanced himself from Bush on the campaign trail, is running 8 percentage points behind his Democratic opponent, Rep. Sherrod Brown. Other Ohio Republicans are in trouble as well, including GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell, who is running 20 points behind Democrat Ted Strickland. Bush, whose approval ratings linger in the low 30s in the state, is scheduled to campaign for Blackwell in Ohio next week.

Yet Rove insisted Tuesday he wasn’t worried, telling supporters that he believes the midterm matchups there and throughout the country are still winnable for the GOP. His talking points were the same: Republicans will win on what will be the two determining issues this fall, the economy and national security. “My message to you is, you did it in ’04,” Rove told the crowd of about 350. “You’ve got the tools, you’ve got the enthusiasm, you’ve got the intensity. Now it’s time to bring it back and do it again in 2006.”

There’s only one problem with Rove’s argument: polls show a majority of Americans still don’t give Bush or his party credit for the economy, while the president’s ratings on his handling of terrorism and national security have dipped in recent weeks. The latest Gallup poll released Tuesday shows that only 39 percent of those surveyed approve of Bush’s handling of the economy—no improvement over poll numbers posted earlier this year. When asked in a recent Gallup survey which party would better handle economic issues, 53 percent of those polled indicated the Democrats.

Bush has also taken a hit when it comes to how Americans view his handling of terrorism and national security. The Gallup poll found his approval rating on his handling of terrorism dropped four points since June, to 47 percent. Americans who approve of the administration’s handling of Iraq remained virtually unchanged at 35 percent. On a related note, the survey found that 37 percent of those surveyed approve of how Bush is handling the situation in the Middle East—though more than two thirds of those polled said they believe the administration “does not” have a “clear and well-thought-out policy.”

A bright spot for the White House: Bush's overall approval rating seems to have leveled out, currently ranked at about 37 percent, according to Gallup. That number is down from Bush's high of 43 percent last January, but up from the dismal 31 percent approval rating recorded in early May.