WASHINGTON: US President George W. Bush has hit a political rough patch, struggling with weak poll numbers and deep scepticism about his chief domestic proposal just weeks after voting in Iraq handed him a triumph. Freed from the burden of seeking re-election, Bush has shown a new confidence in his dealings with the press since winning a second four-year term in November, holding monthly press conferences and being quick with a joke.

But recent national surveys have found that his job approval figures have dropped sharply to below 50 percent, with at least one public opinion study putting him at his lowest level since taking office in January 2001.

That Gallup poll said 45 percent of Americans approved of the way Bush is handling his job, down from 52 percent in the previous survey, while 49 percent disapproved, up from 44 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.

The causes of the decline are unclear, though the surveys have come amid soaring gas prices and deep scepticism about his top domestic priority, the partial privatization of the Social Security retirement programme.

While the January 30 elections in Iraq had boosted the number of Americans who say things are going well there, the number who say Bush is handling the matter well has dropped as more US soldiers have died.

And the US public broke sharply with Bush and his Republican party when they intervened to keep food and water flowing to a severely brain-damaged Florida woman, Terry Schiavo, against several court decisions and her husband’s wishes.

A large majority of respondents to major media polls has said political calculations, not principles, drove Congress to pass last-minute legislation aimed at keeping her alive.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Wednesday blamed the shifting job approval figures in at least one survey on the changing percentage of Republicans and Democrats questioned by the pollsters.

“We don’t get caught up in the week by week polling that goes on. The president is going to continue leading and acting on the big priorities for the American people,” he added as Bush travelled to Iowa.

White House officials say Bush acted on principle, but the president has mostly kept out of sight on the issue since the surveys came out after he made a dramatic flight from his Texas ranch to Washington to sign the Schiavo law.

The political price the president could pay for the downturn is also unclear: Bush is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third term, and the next congressional elections are not until November 2006.

But the White House has laid out an ambitious set of goals, including the overhaul of Social Security, which have met with opposition from Democrats as well as some Republicans who fear tinkering with the cherished programme.

“The president is going to continue using the bully pulpit in leading,” McClellan said, referring to the power the White House enjoys in shaping the national agenda.—AFP