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Article: Economy Provides No Boost For Bush; Foreign Policy Concerns Hurt Approval Ratings
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- June 10, 2004
- Author:
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The nation's economy is growing smartly, wages have begun to rise,
and employers have added more than 1.4 million jobs to their payrolls
in the past nine months. Yet voters continue to give President Bush
poor ratings on his handling of the economy.
It may sound baffling, but interviews with voters, pollsters and
economists suggest Bush's stubborn difficulties on domestic policy
boil down to an obvious problem abroad. "It all goes back to Iraq,"
said Steven Valerga, 50, a Republican in Martinez, Calif., who voted
for Bush in 2000 but plans to vote for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.)
in November. "It's a drain on the economy, when there's so much
needed elsewhere. My gosh, we didn't need to be ...