just pete

George W. Bush is arguably the least popular American president ever.  He certainly has the lowest approval ratings in the 7 decades the Gallup Poll has been in use.  As a Canadian, there is a vague sense of the familiar in all of this, as we look back and consider our own country’s past leadership.  Most political observers and historians here in the Great White North look back on the 1993 Federal election, where the Conservative party went from holding a majority government to losing all but two seats in parliament, and normally lay the blame for that political implosion at the feet of then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.  While there’s no doubt that Kim Campbell, the seated prime minister (after Mulroney’s retirement) running during that election year, made enough gaffs to place the final nails in the party’s coffin, most would agree that the national upsets and unpopular initiatives that plagued Mulroney’s tenure as our Prime Minister offered the bulk of those nails, the hammer, the coffin, and perhaps even dug the hole.  The GST, the Meech Lake Accord, Free Trade, closing the fisheries, all very visible and unpopular initiatives, alienated most Canadians, making Mr. Mulroney one of the least popular Prime Ministers in Canadian History.   The subsequent election and destruction of the Progressive Conservative party was the most devestating loss ever in Canadian political history, and even resulted in a Quebec seperatist party, the Bloc Québécois, filling the Conservative void in becoming the official opposition party.  (Yes, a party that was commited to seperating from Canada was the official check/balance to the Canadian governement.  Wacky, huh?)

Yet, the spots on Mr. Mulroney’s record pale in comparison to those that stain the record of George W. Bush.  I’m not going to bother listing them, everyone knows them, and whether you agree with their validity isn’t nearly as important as recognizing the alienation they’ve caused among large swaths of the voting public.  So here’s my question: Do you think that Bush’s unpopularity could result in a near-destruction of the Republican party in November 2008 as it did here in Canada with the Conservative party in 1993?  Why or why not?

Tags: In The News, In The World //