Bush's low approval rating
In the latest Gallup Poll (March 6), President George W. Bush's approval rating stands at 33%.
That's even lower than his overall approval rating during his sixth year in office, which averaged 37.3%.
The only president in the last 50 years with a worse sixth year in office was Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign that year as a result of the Watergate scandal. Nixon's approval dipped to 25.4%.
Bush's approval rating during his sixth year is also the fourth lowest ever for a president in the 50 years Gallup as been polling. Only Nixon and Harry Truman had lower ratings.
In comparison, Bill Clinton -- the president many in Northwest Florida love to hate -- had an approval rating of 63.8% in his sixth year. That, by the way, was the year he faced impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Bush's low approval can certainly be attributed in large part to his handling of the war in Iraq. As the war's popularity has diminished, so has Bush's approval.
But Iraq isn't the only reason. Other issues, such as his administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, have also hurt Bush.
Now Bush is facing more controversy. A Democrat-controlled Congress wants to know all the details regarding the White House's role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Subpoenas are being prepared. Key adviser Karl Rove and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales are under intense scrutiny. Bush is digging in his heels.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Here's a prediction: Bush's approval will drop still lower in the coming weeks.
posted by Patrick Rice @ 7:57 AM
18 Comments
18 Comments:
That's a fair prediction Pat. It doesn't seem like his administration can do anything right.
I am reminded of a series of NPR stories awhile back that detailed the relationships of White House staffers and their loyalty to the Pres and the GOP. I'm curious as to what type of oath or pledge Karl Rove holds all of the staffers to.
It doesn't just speak for his administration but for the entire Republican Party. As a principal, they are dishonest.
I had a good friend once that was a habitual liar. It didn't take long for everybody to get fed up with his lies and now he lives in his parent's garage and doesn't have a friend in the world...He, like the president, never apologized - that would be a step in the right direction...
Dude, tell us something we don't know. We all know his approval rating, it's been shown constantly on television.
His low ratings are contributed 99.99% to the handling of the Iraq War.
New Orleans is a screwed-up city and always has been. The reason why Nagin won was that the people who ran against him were worse than he was. If the Governor would have done her job and the city would have done its job, we would not have this problem. Florida has had worse hurricanes hit their state and have never had situations like in N.O. They only have their selves to blame. But I digress. Mississippi
Many democrats are just itching to impeach Bush and Cheney.
Here’s a prediction, no, a fact: Bush will never be impeached, let alone Bush and Cheney.
If the media focuses more deserved attention on the surge that is starting to work his numbers might go up, but we all know the media would never want that to happen.
…I’m just sayin’
You’re right, Truman did have low approval ratings, but there are also a number of other similarities between the two. Truman is also regarded favorably compared to other former presidents, Bush likely will be too after his term ends and historians take a NON-BIASED look at his time in office.
Clinton was obsessed with polls and was always looking for approval, Bush doesn’t put much credence in these things. Don’t forget 70% supported the war even when there were no WMDs found. People are fickle when it comes to polls, presidents can’t be.
I never looked much at polls as the news can certainly manipulate the stories. So many people are simple-minded and unsophisticated enough to believe whatever the media tells them without looking at all sides of an issue.
As you can tell from Obama’s strong poll numbers people look at image, not substance. Obama hasn’t said anything concrete about any important issue or how he would resolve any problems, but he has high approval ratings because marketing to unsophisticated masses isn’t that hard.
The current “scandal” may do democrats more harm than good. They were elected to end “politics as usual,” but this is more of the same. Even if they are successful in subpoenaing Karl Rove he’ll likely make an appearance, cite the 5th amendment and be on his way.
Don’t forget Florida, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi have the same federal government Louisiana does and they’re in far better shape. The Republican leaders in the other states got to work and took care of business themselves to get things back to normal. In Louisiana, the democrats have one hand out to the federal government and the other pointing fingers at everyone else. Instead of rebuilding the democrats are waiting for somebody else to do something.
The disagreement over the dismissal of the US Attorneys is an example of how our elected leaders are trying to put personal political gain above any other goal. US Attorneys are in a political position and could be removed at the discretion of the president--just as President Clinton did when he was in office.
The posturing has hurt President Bush. More importantly, it has hurt the country. A country that is not unified--or is at odds with itself--is not going to create a favorable image. Our elected leaders revel in the publicity they get when visiting overseas and taking shots at our elected president just as they do in Congress.
There is little effort to solve the problems we are facing. Most of the effort is in destroying the other side in hopes of winning the next election.
Term limits would be a partial solution but that is not likely to happen.
In the meantime, we can look forward to destructive national politics; efforts to destroy whomever Americans have elected to be in the White House; and very little in the way of constructive suggestions. Along the way, the party that controls Congress will spend an extra few hundred billion in hopes of helping win over voters for the next election.
I hope the editorial staff of the Daily News will consider coming out in favor of term limits--perhaps even citing our Congressman Alan Boyd as an example of a politician who is easily falling into the destructive politics camp while rattling off that he is a "blue dog" Democrat at every opportunity. That, apparently, only means that Republicans should vote for him because he isn't a real Democrat despite his voting record that says otherwise.
He is a poor president. His staff around him is poor. America and Americans aren't blind.
The first question I want to ask the brilliant Bush haters is this: have any of you rocket scientists ever been polled by a Gallup poll? Those that strongly support Bush, like myself, are usually working when the pollsters call, that is, if they ever call anyone outside of New York City. And even if I were at home, I wouldn't answer the phone anyway or waste my time answering silly, biased poll questions. This leaves me to wonder who really does take these polls which "represent the majority of Americans”. Take your own poll. Ask all your friends how many have ever participated in a Gallop poll. Remember to add plus or minus 4 % polling error, whichever one is in your favor.
Secondly, Clinton WAS impeached by the House of Representatives on Saturday 19 December 1998 for lying under oath (Obstruction of Justice) to a Federal Grand Jury, not for having sex with Monica. This gives him the distinction of being only the second President in history to achieve this honor. This is something the liberal media chooses to forget or spin away. Clinton also fired 98 Justices in one swoop with Janet Waco Reno in charge and no Democrats cried about that. Can you say Hypocritical?
Pat, had you been here during Opal, you would have remembered that Cat 4 / Cat 5 hurricanes have a tendency to disrupt communications, power, transportation, and a few other things that make it difficult to respond quickly. What happened in New Orleans was mother nature's fault, not the President’s. If you want to point a liberal finger, point it at the Democrats in charge, namely the whining, cursing Mayor and the weeping, clueless Governor who forgot New Orleans is below sea level. Maybe they were busy accepting bribes from Louisiana Democratic Congressman William “the Frig” Jefferson.
As far as Iraq goes, everyone's an arm chair quarterback with expert knowledge of Middle East culture and Military Operations. I haven't heard the Democrats offer one solution other than "Cut and Run" or "Slow Bleed" the war funding. They are too busy voting on non-binding resolutions and other country destructive activities. This President wants to win the war and that really bothers the anti-war liberals who would rather apologize, enter rehab, or tuck tail and run. I guess if we won this one, it would make the Democrats look bad and might set a nasty precedence on how we handle other nuclear knuckleheads.
In my mind, Bush's approval rating continues to grow. He doesn't bow down to a bunch of liberal cowards that take their direction from George Soros, Cindy Sheehan, or MoveOn.org. If the liberals had the guts to admit it, they would tell you that they want Karl Rove out because he keeps outsmarting them every step of the way, which “ain’t that difficult”. Bush beat Global Warming hypocrite Al Gore and not so Swift Boat John Kerry and has saved us from another terrorist attack on US soil.
Rather then focus on approval ratings that don’t mean “Jack”, focus on the antics of the Democratic congress that wants to hijack the Presidency and set a nasty precedence for future Presidents, both Republican and Democrats. Try to be more “objective”. You can call me Woody.
To the briliant "rocket scientist" Bush supporter (not supporters). Polls are conducted mainly in the evening, and although there exist both accurate polls and those that are suspect, the ratings for your president remain low and continue to drop. This is consistant and unrefutable. Your president is quite the idiot, with and ever changing reason as to why we went to war. The attack on our soil did in FACT happen during his tour of duty, and I use that term loosly as his military service is suspect at best. Believe all that you want to from Hannity, Rush, FOX News, and their likes, they are are full of shit but hold you and your like captive. The democrats are attempting to do what 70 percent of Americans want done - End the War. As your leader has proved time and again uncapable of any leadership, someone has to do it. Call it cut and run if you like, I call it the final realization of a stupid mistake being brought to an end. We don't have to agree and as you I don't care but I do care that we are in a situation that is not winable and will only continue to waste money, kill and maim Americans for a people that are not worth it.
To the briliant "rocket scientist" Bush supporter (not supporters). Polls are conducted mainly in the evening, and although there exist both accurate polls and those that are suspect, the ratings for your president remain low and continue to drop. This is consistant and unrefutable. Your president is quite the idiot, with and ever changing reason as to why we went to war. The attack on our soil did in FACT happen during his tour of duty, and I use that term loosly as his military service is suspect at best. Believe all that you want to from Hannity, Rush, FOX News, and their likes, they are are full of shit but hold you and your like captive. The democrats are attempting to do what 70 percent of Americans want done - End the War. As your leader has proved time and again uncapable of any leadership, someone has to do it. Call it cut and run if you like, I call it the final realization of a stupid mistake being brought to an end. We don't have to agree and as you I don't care but I do care that we are in a situation that is not winable and will only continue to waste money, kill and maim Americans for a people that are not worth it.
To 3rd Anonymous: As someone who used to work at the Gallup Poll, I have some information to share with you. The Gallup poll calls at all times of the day, where it's legal to call. (Typically 8am - 10pm (9pm in California)) You haven't been polled by Gallup because there are 300 million people. An average CNN poll has a sample size around 1200. Figure around 100 million (a guess) either don't own a phone or are too young to participate in the survey, this gives you a .0006% chance of being called with any given survey. CNN typically contracts about a poll a week, with a slight bump in frequency before elections, or after major events. So you have a 0.0312% chance of getting called in any given year. Say you live to 100, your total amount of time where you would be eligible for a poll would be 82 years, and so over your entire life span you would have a 2.5% chance of being called by Gallup.
Now that that's out of the way, you mentioned only calling NY City. That's ridiculous, we called everywhere. Granted, to get a true percentage the demographics should be close to that of the real United States, so, NY City does have more respondents than say Niceville, but that's because there are far more people in NYC.
Also, it seems you don't understand margin of error. If you take a random sample of a group, and ask them the thoughts, you get some semblance of what the entire group thinks. The larger your random sample, the more likely your poll results are to be correct. In a US National Poll, a random sampling of 1200 gives a +-4% margin of error for the entire population. The margin of error only means that there is a 66% chance that the real result is within that range. So, say someone had an approval rating of 36% with 1200 respondents, there would be a 66% chance it really fell within 32-40%. There is a 99.7% chance that it falls within +- twice the margin of error, 28-44% in this case.
Also, you can't ask your friends their thoughts and expect it to be any semblance to reality. For polling to work the sample needs to be completely random. If they're your friends, even if you're not aware of the bias, it exists. Garbage in, garbage out.
All that being said, there are reasonable concerns now with polling. For one thing, groups like the Gallup Organization aren't supposed to call cell phones. For people, like me, who only own a cell phone, I'll never get called by them. Typically the younger generation owns more cell phones, and in other polling methods, this group appears to be more democrat than republican. On the other side of the coin, older people, who have less patience with phone calls, or who may be hard of hearing, are more frequently republican. I doubt these two groups cancel each other out, but at the very least, opinion polls do show trends. Even if it's not an accurate representation of the entire population, it does show how the people willing to take opinion polls are trending, and so far, since Truman beat Dewey, the results in Presidential elections have always been within twice the margin of error. So, turn your nose up to them all you want, but it won't make you any more right.
I do agree that polling, when done properly, is a useful tool. But the polls did show Howard Dean winning the nomination by a wide margin before a single vote was cast, and we all saw how that turned out.
Polls can also be manipulated by the way the question is phrased, and then the media seems to spin the interpretation to substantiate the message they want to deliver instead of letting the facts speak for themselves.
I studied polling and sampling in-depth as a part of my Masters Degree, and think they’re sound if used the right way. Unfortunately the polls regarding politics don’t seem to be conducted, or reported on honestly.
In addition to Howard Dean, you may also recall how the exit polls showed Senator Kerry far ahead in many states, but they all turned out to be wrong. Is it statistically possible that so many polls could be so wrong in the same direction on the same day?
I do know that polling is a sound science and polls are very useful when conducted properly. But political polls are no longer conducted ethically and I no longer have any faith in polls about politics.
Assume the following question in a poll:
"Do you approve of President Bush's handling of the Iraq War?"
If 80% of people (for example) vote "No.", then all that means is that they do not approve of how President Bush is handling the war. It doesn't mean that 80% disapprove of the war itself.
Americans are always following the latest trends. I wonder how many disapprove of Bush because "many of the other people are doing it too".
Kind of off-topic, but I'll have you know, if you polled virtually any high school in the nation, there would be an OVERWHELMING majority that think our President, George W. Bush, is stupid and that he is one of the worst president's in American history. You would also find that the majority of students want the war to be over right now, no matter what.
This holds true in our area, which is fairly conservative, also.
I'm a 16 year-old high school student and one of the very few republicans in my school and one of the only few who actually have a clue what's going on in the world and how ignorant and lazy kids these day's are.
And I'll tell you one thing, it's COMPLETELY the parent's faults.
Polling is nothing more than a product of the media's effect on human opinion...nothing more. The vast majority of coverage of President Bush is extremely negative, despite the fact that he's had some significant success in the White House.
Iraq is much more a victory than a defeat, but major media boneheads who won't leave the green zone to actually find out what's going on in Iraq, and who had a political agenda against the war before they even got in country, are attempting to shape public opinion against the war.
Instead of people paying attention to the soldiers who are actually doing the job, they're chosing to listen to reporters who in most cases don't even actually have first-hand knowledge of what they're reporting on.
The fact is that Bush won his last election, and he's not running for anything again. Polls on his public standing are completely worthless. He will be judged by history and the products of what he's done while in the White House.
A generation ago liberals were laughing at President Reagan's concept of "Star Wars." They said it would never work. Today, it's reality.
While Iraq isn't perfect, we're killing Al Qaeda in Iraq every day. Those are terrorists who would be aiming at the US were they not engaged in a despirate battle to prevent our success in Iraq. If they are able to continue to successfully combine their efforts with the liberals who apparently prefer US loss in Iraq to any possibility of President Bush being able to claim success, they will use Iraq as a way to rally much more Muslim support for their cause, and mainland US will be their next stop.
Count on it.
Bush and his administration have brought this upon themselves. They have ruled arrogantly and from the extreme right. They have severely endangered our national security. They propagandize by catch phrase: Stay the course, mission accomplished, Support the troops,etc. But there is no substance behind their babbling and the majority of people are now fed up.
All the President's you mentioned were rogue Presidents and should have been dealt with accordingly.
Bush's approval rating has been low and not totally from Iraq or Katrina. It is more systematic of his entire tenure in office. More missteps and bravado have done him in with the majority of the public. Northwest Florida is definitely not representative of the average person. Too much 'support the President at all costs". I worked in state government and retired from it, and witnessed the bowing down to the Bushes--Jeb and George. It was really a non-thinking position,and in fact most of people I talk to here in NWF have their minds made up--don't confuse them with the facts attitude. So much for thoughtful discussion. So when NWF people leave the area prepare for debate. Shalimar Partisan
I'm not in high school. I have a Masters' Degree, and I believe our president is stupid. When his tenure as president is over, my memory will not be that of the war, but will be his shitting upon the Constitution of the United States.
..."A generation ago liberals were laughing at President Reagan's concept of "Star Wars". They said it would never work. Today it's a reality"...Spoken like a true NWF Republican. Pull the kool-aid IV out of your arm, friend.
As the subpoenas fly around D.C., I predict the president's approval poll will resemble a homebuilder's stock chart.
Personally, I don't think history will be as kind to the present administration as she was to President Reagan. (I guess the motto being "You can write a few trillion dollars worth of hot checks on the U.S. Government once, but don't try to do it twice."
But I hope I'm wrong...
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