Will he be another one-term Bush?

Although the Democratic primaries and caucuses continue, the prediction made in this column immediately after the Iowa primaries are about to come to fruition.

I predicted Dean was done, after leading by double digits going into the Iowa caucus. Dean has picked up only a handful of delegates since Iowa and has consistently run in single digits. It appears he's the only one who doesn't yet know he's done.

I also predicted that John Kerry would be nominee of the Democratic Party for President. Kerry took the momentum gained in the Iowa caucus and steamrolled it into impressive wins in almost all of the primaries that followed. He has also picked up the endorsements of two former candidates for the Democratic nomination, Dick Gephardt and Wesley Clark. This nominating process is all over except the shouting.

For the past couple of weeks, Kerry has largely ignored the foes he faces from his own party and has concentrated almost exclusively on the perceived shortcomings of President Bush. And, as the following information implies, it appears to be a sound strategy.

According to a new Washington Post - ABC News poll, reported in a story in the Post written by Richard Morin and Dana Milbank, a majority of Americans believe President Bush either lied or deliberately exaggerated evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the war. Twenty-one percent of the registered voters sampled believe he lied about the threat and 31 percent believe he exaggerated the threat.

The poll consisted of 1,003 randomly selected registered Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. This doubt about his forthrightness in regards to the reasons for war has also driven down the number of voters who believe he is "honest and trustworthy."

Those numbers are now at 52 percent, down 7 percentage points since late October and his worst showing since the question was first asked in March of 1999. His highest numbers came in the summer of 2002 when Bush was viewed as honest by 71 percent of registered voters.

After using "honesty" and "credibility" as campaign issues against Al Gore in the 2000 election, a number of factors including the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq and the administration's underestimating of its Medicare prescription drug plans' costs have definitely undermined the public's perception of his credibility.

Other poll results indicate that the public's' approval of the overall job he is doing as President is down to 50 percent, the lowest level of his presidency and down 8 percent in just one month. For the first time since the war ended, fewer than half of Americans -- 48 percent -- believe the war was worth fighting, down 8 percent from just last month. 50 percent said the war was not worth it.

The number of Americans viewing him as a "strong leader" has slipped to 61 percent, down 6 points from December and the lowest level since the 9/11, 2001 terrorist attacks. His rating on handling the economy stood at 44 percent, down 7 percentage points, with almost half of the public saying they are worse off now than they were when Bush became president three years ago. This is a particularly important number since it historically is the driving reason behind who people vote for as President. Sixty percent of the people disapprove of the job he's doing in creating jobs.

When asked about education, only 47 percent said they approve of the job Bush is doing, down 8 points from January. His rating on health care has also dropped. In fact, his approval ratings dropped in every single category the American people were asked about. His declining ratings related to Iraq were the most striking. Approval of his handling of the situation there has fallen to 47 percent, down 8 percentage points in the past three weeks and over half of all Americans said they would prefer a report evaluating the accuracy and use of prewar intelligence to be delivered BEFORE the election, instead of being reported after the election, as is now the plan.

How do all these declining numbers translate into the presidential race? They appear to be significant. In a head-to-head matchup, John Kerry beats George Bush by a whopping 9 percentage points, 52 percent to 43 percent among registered voters. When asked, Americans saw the Democratic candidate being able to handle the economy, jobs, education, and health care (all top issues with voters this year) better than Bush.

Although it's still a long way to election day, the possibility is certainly there that George W. Bush could not only follow his father, George Herbert Walker Bush, into the West Wing, but might also follow him out after only one term.