Is the war good politics for us?

Here's the lede from an AP story today. It shows that Bush is losing support from a core element of his base, specifically because of the war.

President Bush's once-solid relationship with Southern women is on the rocks. "I think history will show him to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant," said Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth and the mother of three. "He's been an embarrassment." In the heart of Dixie, comparisons to Grant, a symbol of the Union, is the worst sort of insult, especially from a Macon woman who voted for Bush in 2000 but turned away in 2004.

Naturally, I don't agree with the Southern view of Ulysses Grant, since he is one of the three or four people that we owe the existence of the United States to, but even his supporters don't defend his presidency.

What seems significant, though, is that if even Southerners are willing to put Bush on the same level as Grant, and particularly Grant's failed presidency, it clearly can't be good for the R's, and clearly should be good for us if we can capitalize on it.

That, of course, is the big if.