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By Albert R. Hunt
May 14 (Bloomberg) -- There's a number that chills Republicans: 616. That's how many days remain in the Bush administration.
Private conversations with Republicans throughout America reveal doom and gloom about a politically paralyzed presidency and party. The on-the-record observations are almost as bleak.
``There's a lot of nervousness up here,'' says U.S. Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois. ``It's a very difficult time for Republicans.'' LaHood was one of 11 House Republicans who met with President George W. Bush this past week to tell him the party was in political peril.
``Unfortunately, the big issues will not be dealt with between now and the next election,'' says Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina.
``The country doesn't believe George W. Bush, it doesn't trust him, and with 19 months to go it's only going to get worse,'' predicts Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who ran Ronald Reagan's 1984 presidential campaign. ``There is nothing the president can do to get his (poll) numbers back up.''
According to those polls, almost two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance; that is Richard Nixon territory. A majority of the public approved of the performance of the last two lame-duck presidents, Reagan and Bill Clinton, at this same stage in their administrations.
While the other major democracies have, or are about to have, new leaders, America is mired in a rudderless status quo. A new embarrassment or scandal -- Alberto Gonzales, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove -- seems to surface daily; the only good news for the White House is that occasionally these stories overshadow the bad news coming out of Iraq.
Bush is reviled around much of the world, has precious little political capital at home, and seems surrounded by hacks or the forgettable and faceless.
Strikingly, perhaps the two most important members of the Cabinet -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson -- have little history with the president, and their greatest leverage is the havoc that would be wrought if they left.
For a year and a half, there have been various rationalizations for Bush's second-term presidential problems, and guarantees that a solution is at hand.
Josh Bolten, who replaced Andy Card as chief of staff, was supposed to refocus the administration; after Rove escaped the shadow of a special prosecutor, he and the president were going to be re-energized; when Don Rumsfeld, the face of the Iraq debacle, was fired, there was supposed to be a new start.
Now, the dwindling band of Bush supporters have run out of fixes and are resigned to the contemporary assessments. Like Harry Truman, the patron saint of unpopular American politicians, Bush will be vindicated by history, they say.
An analogy to President Lyndon Johnson seems more apt, although with an exception: LBJ became a lame duck with less than 10 months to go in his term; Bush, the 43rd president, has almost twice as long to go.
This has enormous implications for foreign policy, domestic politics and the legislative agenda for the next year and a half.
Bill Cohen, a Republican who served as defense secretary under Clinton, thinks Bush blew what may have been his last opportunity by failing to embrace the bipartisan recommendations by the Jim Baker-Lee Hamilton-led Iraq Study Group to gradually disengage from Iraq.
Cohen, who travels the globe advising clients, says the president ``doesn't have much influence on anything,'' commanding little respect or fear around the world.
That's why the notion that he may take military action against Iran -- for good or bad reasons -- is far-fetched. The American military, bogged down in Iraq, lacks the resources and the president lacks the credibility for such a huge step.
Politically, there is a telling indicator: Count the number of times any Republican presidential candidate cites Bush in speeches, debates or interviews. You will need only one hand, if that.
Recall a few years ago how this president was the dominant figure in his party.
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