Not exactly Mr. Popularity

August 1, 2005

I had a post recently about Bush’s falling poll numbers, which led a couple of commenters to express some frustration. One regular noted, “I’ve been hearing down, down, down for weeks, but somehow the numbers don’t seem to change that much, and he never seems to reach his lowest levels, at least in most polls.”

It’s a fair point. There’s talk of Bush hitting the rock-bottom of his national support, and then we see some poll pegging his approval rating at 47%, which is low, but not shockingly so.

With this in mind, I’m pleased to report that Bush’s support really is plunging.

A new Gallup Poll finds a drop in George W. Bush’s job approval rating, which currently stands at 44% after being at 49% in two earlier polls this month. The current rating is the lowest of the Bush presidency. Bush’s favorable rating has also hit a new low, as just 48% of Americans rate him favorably, which is the first time that percentage has dropped below 50%.

Gallup also showed Bush’s support among self-identified independents dropping to 36%, also an all-time low for his presidency.

The confusion over competing poll numbers comes, of course, from variety. With this in mind, let’s consider some context.

* Gallup has Bush’s approval rating at 44%, the lowest of the Bush presidency.

* Associated Press/Ipsos has Bush’s approval rating at 42%, the lowest of the Bush presidency.

* Quinnipiac has Bush’s approval rating at 41%, the lowest of the Bush presidency.

* American Research Group has Bush’s approval rating at 42%, the lowest of the Bush presidency.

* Pew Research Center has Bush’s approval rating at 44%, near the lowest of the Bush presidency.

When one pollster shows Bush in the low 40s, it’s easier to suggest it’s an outlier. When everyone says it, we’re talking about a trend. The average of these five national polls is 42.6%.

The bottom line is, we’re dealing with an unpopular president.

This is great news, but how does it affect anything? He’s not running for anything anymore, and he’s just doing the same old crap. (IE recess-appointing Bolton.) It’s not affecting him. Sometimes I wonder about the usefulness of polls.

  • This is great news, but how does it affect anything?

    We’ll see. Republican lawmakers may be afraid to go out on various limbs if they know they can’t count on the president’s popularity to help them out. Similarly, numbers like these embolden Dems. When Bush is riding high, Dems are tepid and afraid to be too aggressive; when Bush is scraping the bottom, Dems feel empowered.

    Rian’s right, Bush can’t run for anything again, but 2006 may very well be a referendum on his presidency. If he’s hovering around 40% support, the midterms can and should be a tremendous opportunity for the Dems.

  • The other question, of course, being “Does it matter?” These numbers would have been a lot more worth crowing about back, say, Nov. 1 2004. I mean, I can’t believe they’re even this high, but I don’t see any consequences. The GOP’s legislative agenda, such as it is, seems to run along independent of any concern for what people in the country actually want. The problem is, he ain’t running for reelection is he. So I don’t think the GOP even cares. Their program is all about rewarding their cronies, not doing things for their constituents. They seem to have evolved a political methodology that can absorb a great deal of unpopularity for themselves and their proposals without it causing them any undue harm or concern. They’ve turned it into a virtue: “Who cares about polls? We’re providing leadership!” Which actually translates as, “Fuck Democracy, we’re rewarding our big donors.” And so far it seems to work quite well for ’em.

    As I look at it, the evidence seems to show that the threshold of how bad the numbers have to be to have an effect is ridiculously high. SS “reform” garnered sufficiently horrible numbers to drag it to a near-halt, but fact is I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to see another “midnight miracle” shove that one through sometime in the fall. Nobody liked their medicare reform or the bankruptcy bill either, but a passive, coopted media smooths all waters for them pretty well. My own opinion is that if the Shithead’s numbers start dipping into the 30’s we might start seeing some practical results, but anything above 40 is within tolerances for the “Fuck the People Anyway” party. Otherwise our steady, confident march into the bright shining future of soft totalitarianism will continue unperturbed, Murdoch and Diebold willing.

  • Well, I see Rian had the same thought and hit “submit” first. Carpetbagger: I’d like to feel more encouraged. But I think these guys really feel like they’ve got things sewn up tight enough that they don’t have to care. That’s how one-party rule gets instituted and survives, after all. They don’t do it by earning the approval of the majority; they do it by corruption and big money and intimidation and bludgeoning dissent with war-fear and pseudo-patriotism. Above all, they do it by controlling the means of communication, allowing them to structure pereptions to their advantage where they can, and silence contradictions and scandals where they can’t.

    I think the model here is something like the PRI in Mexico, only with more money and a better propaganda operation. I don’t see numbers like this putting a stop to that plan unless they drop to something even Fox, redistricting and Diebold can’t fix.

  • I don’t think we can take too much comfort from these numbers. There will be spikes either way over the next few years. What matters is what they are in October ’06 and ’08. They’ve seen the same poll-tracking charts we have. They know how to spike the number up (TFH).

  • Point 1: It’s increasingly clear that nothing will budge 40% of the populace. They are a faith-based initiative, and they have faith in Bush no matter what calamities he brings about.

    Point 2: This one cannot be emphasized enough. Bush above all wants to bring about radical change. Since radical change is never popular, low ratings are for Bush (possibly) a sign that he is on the right track. If his ratings were higher it would mean he was being insufficiently bold. This president likes low ratings and winning battles by unbelievably small margins (witness Bolton’s appointment).

    Point 3: Disregard all of the above if the price of oil hits $3 a gallon.

    I was linked to in that post — thanks, Carpetbagger! I never cease to be amazed at the high quality of this blog.

  • Thanks for that bracing comment DrBB. Our incomprehensible Dear Leader Bush has a way of shaking the Monday morning cobwebs out doesn’t he?

    Maybe the Bolton appt. will help get him closer to those magic 30’s.

  • burro, I wouldn’t bet on it–Bolton’s really just a small (if very obnoxious) fish in the grand scheme of things.

    I’ve got my money on the approval ratings really tanking when Fitzgerald’s indictments come down. Or when gas hits $3 a gallon. Or when the Chinese decide it is not in their interest to subsidize our government spending.

    Whichever comes first.

  • I have to agree with Martin — there is an unbudge-able 40% of the population that quite literally worships the ground Bush walks on. Bush represents to them a sort of Buddha figure — someone who is exalted to the point of ultimate enlightenment. The historical Buddha is said to have had lotus flowers spring up wherever he walked. George Bush has the same thing happen, of course — only they’re turd blossoms.

  • One thing I think is worth considering is the Bandwagon effect. We are not really that far out from the 2004 elections and there are probably still some Bush supporters that only supported him because a lot of other people were. I think if the level of public disgust continues to rise we might get below that magic 40% mark in the near future.

    I’m not sure that I agree 100% with DrBB, if public perception didn’t play some part they wouldn’t be spending so much time trying to spin their way out of the Plame Affair.

  • I don’t think Bush cares about anything other than rewarding this cronies and extending one-party rule (and the latter is really frosting on the greed cake). Ratings don’t matter to him at all, nor can I imagine why even his handlers care about them at this point.

    I can’t claim his ability to look into people’s souls, but it seems to me Bush has no policy interests. He may pass his physical exams with flying colors, but he has a badly damaged brain. His supposed religious re-birth and his compulsive exercising seem to be crutches/subsitutes for his untreated alcoholism. Everything he’s touched throughout his life has been a failure. He is seriously flawed. I can’t imagine, after a lifetime of such experience, that knows or cares what people think of him.

    Members of Congress, on the other hand, can no longer ally themselves with his sinking sun. They’ve got to begin distancing themselves from this life-long loser. Every new poll points to that.

  • Ratings don’t matter to him, but they matter to the media and the spin they put on things. If people want to see negative stories on the Prez (i.e., he’s unpopular), the media responds in kind.

  • DrBB has put his finger on the button. I have been thinking this same thing for quite a while now. The PRI in Mexico is a perfect analogy for this white house. Transfering the wealth of a nation into the hands of a select few, via the crony capitalist model, driving the standard of living down through brutal labor practices and the wages of poverty. Bush doesn’t give a damn about his ‘favorability ratings’, all he has to do to turn that stuff around is pull some ‘turkey in iraq’ stunt, and his MSM fan club is right back on board diverting our attention away from what actually is important.

  • The figures CB cites indicate that Bush has finally dropped
    below his previous low ratings prior to election, 2004.

    In view of this, I thought the following column by Michael
    Barone of U.S. News and World Report might be
    entertaining. The column is entitled “Bush Bashing
    Fizzles.” The link is to a blog posting, because the URL
    to the original article at US News was about a mile
    long. Note, too, the comments from our friends on the
    other side! They sure don’t stack up to what I see here
    in terms of quality, insight or originality.

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1449993/posts

  • what really gets me, is that nary a single republican even cares that he’s unpopular. it’s as if the public opinion means nothing whatsoever to any of them.

  • Actually, the low ratings number do matter and will start to influence
    events in the not too distant future. As we get closer to the 2006
    Congressional elections Republicans may not be so excited about being linked with an upopular President running an upopular war. They may think more about their own futures and start distancing themselves from
    White House policies. Of course, if the Special Prosecutor hands down
    indictments with the names of high-ranking officials on them this will be
    even more disturbing for GOP candidates in 2006. Who wants to
    be linked to indicted White House operatives (that is, if those named
    were people like Cheney, Scooter Libby, Rove,and even -dare we hope-
    Bush himself)? It’s still early in the game, but as time wears on it is
    going to become harder to raise campaign money by invoking the name
    of Bush.
    If the Democrats are smart they will start laying the groundwork for
    how they will respond to these potential scenarios now. Just give the
    Republicans enough rope and they may hang themselves on it.
    Bush at 40% may not be upsetting to the Republican “base.” But
    Bush at 35%, 30% or 25% would bring delicious possibilities for
    the opposition. It might even revive democracy again in this country.

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