for the past few months bush's approval ratings have finally dipped below 50%. whenever i talk about the president's reelection prospects to any of my friends, one of us always adds the caveat: this all goes out the window if there is another terrorist attack before the election
but this is exactly what has happened in spain. spain's national elections are this weekend, only days after the horrific madrid blast. which is why prime minister aznar's government is trying hard to blame the ETA and not al-qaeda for the attack. aznar's party was favored to win in polls taken earlier this week, now no one knows what will happen.
this morning it struck me that this is playing out in spain exactly the opposite way that me and my friends have assumed it would in the u.s. when we said "this goes out the window if there is another terrorist attack" what we meant was that if there was an attack--specifically an al-qaeda attack, bush would probably win, regardless how low his polls sink prior to the attack. in spain, it seems, a confirmed al-qaeda attack may be fatal to the governing party.
what accounts for the difference? in spain, the strongly pro-u.s. aznar went out on a limb and against the overwhelming will of the spanish public when he supported the u.s. led invasion of iraq. the theory is, with 90% of spaniards against the iraq war, if it is al-qaeda they will blame aznar and his party for making them a target. in the u.s. on the other hand, both our ego and geopolitical reality indicate that we already were a target.
oddly, also i think if the u.s. were attacked before the election, many americans would feel like that somehow justified the war. they would feel that it proves that the "war on terror" lives on, and want to rally behind bush as a leader just as the american people did after 9-11. never mind that such an attack could also be seen as evidence that removing hussein from power may not have made us any safer.
on the other hand, this is all speculation. i've certainly been wrong before, probably more often than not. i just hope that i never find out if i am right on this one.
