Is Bush Losing the Numbers Game?

As the jobless figure goes up, his standing in the polls heads down

Matthew Beck, a deputy sheriff from Pleasanton, Calif., stood up in the White House Rose Garden Wednesday morning and asked George Bush a question that's been on a lot of Americans' minds lately. "I'd like to know," Beck said, "why I should vote for you."

"That's a good one," Bush replied, as if Beck had just got off a real knee slapper. "That is good."

The President then launched into what has become the essential message of his re-election bid: "I think in the final analysis people are going to say, 'Who has the experience, who has the temperament to take...

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