President Bush’s poll numbers are tanking because he forgot how he got to the White House.

The background is summed up well in an excellent piece in Time magazine this week by Joe Klein. Klein is one of the best political reporters going.

Klein’s article – in which he says consultants have ruined politics – says Bush’s campaign understood something about 2004 race that Kerry’s campaign never understood. The race wasn’t about issues. It was about who voters trusted.

Bush’s message was “you may not agree with me, but you know where I stand.” Plus: “You can’t believe anything Kerry says.”

(This, of course, will sound familiar to Carter and everyone who remembers the 1984 Hunt-Helms race.)

Well, that strategy worked for Bush. Unfortunately, he forgot it once he was sworn in.

Here is why voters don’t trust him:

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  He said Iraq would be easy, and he knew – or should have known – it wouldn’t.

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  When the trailers were found (read today’s Washington Post story), he said we had found the weapons of mass destruction. We hadn’t.

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  He said that revealing classified information put America at risk. Then he declassified information himself to get back at a political critic.

Now Bush is at the point – like Kerry – where nobody believes anything he says. Not a good place to be.

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