Worst…support…ever

November 3, 2005

Every time a new poll comes out showing Bush’s faltering support nationwide, I think, “OK, now he’s reached the floor of his support.” And yet, the floor manages to fall a little further all the time.

A new CBS News poll suggests the bottom has completely fallen out for the president, thanks in large part to the public’s reaction to the Plame scandal. If Bush’s support drops much further, it’s not ridiculous to wonder if his presidency will ever be able to recover.

* Approval rating — Bush is down to just 35% support. His favorability rating, usually high despite low job approval ratings, is down to just 33%.

* On the issues — 47% support Bush’s handling of the war on terror, 34% support his handling of the economy, and 32% support his handling of the war in Iraq.

* Cheney — Though the poll doesn’t gauge Cheney’s approval rating, his favorability rating is down to a stunning 19%.

* The war in Iraq — A combined 64% of poll respondents believe the Bush administration either intentionally hid key information or was mostly lying about WMD before the war began.

* Plame Game — Asked about the scandal’s significance, 51% said the Plame matter is of “great importance,” while an additional 35% said it’s of “some importance.” Those are the highest scores for a president scandal since — you guessed it — Watergate.

It’s tempting to think Bush has no where to go but up, but then again, we’ve thought that before.

Just for fun, it’s also interesting to consider Bush’s plummeting support in a historical context. This graph ran in the Wall Street Journal the other day. Pay particular attention to the Bush/Nixon comparison.

polls

That’s a great graph. Shruby’s following Tricky Dick like a dog trying to get a good sniff of another dogs butt. That resignation’s out there and the Shrub is in the hunt.

Go get ’em boy!

  • Dub’s a long way from resigning. With three years left, he has lots of time to recover. Now he just needs to figure out how to recover. And we Dems will probably let him off the hook…

  • That graph for Nixon doesn’t make sense, the June ’72 break-in was prior to the end of his first term.

  • This goes to show that even Nixon looks like a respectable, responsible, ethical leader when compard to W. W will never resign he will ahv eto be escored from the building. The best we can hope for it that his numbers stay in the 30’s and Dems can use that to their advantage.

  • Carpetbagger are you saying that Mr. Duberstein could be wrong?

    Yep.

    …the June ’72 break-in was prior to the end of his first term.

    Good point, SP. The break-in label is clearly misplaced. I’m pretty confident that the polling data is accurate, though.

  • polling data is wrong, too, at least for Bush, assuming this is an “approval” poll. see the Pollkatz site. It doesn’t even make sense if you just consider the NBC/WSJ polls.

    Stupid WSJ.

  • “That graph for Nixon doesn’t make sense, the June ’72 break-in was prior to the end of his first term.”

    Correct. It most like refers to when the Watergate coverup storing broke big, in March of ’73 when the WH firings and resignations took place.

  • Here’s another graph of Bush
    approval ratings:

    http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm

    Last week I predicted that Plamegate
    would be his low point, and I still
    think that. So if it goes any lower,
    I’m wrong.

    But does it really make any
    difference, if the Democrats
    won’t seize the opportunity
    and offer new policies that
    will resonate with the voters
    in 2006?

  • I have to concur, there’s something wrong with the chart. Bush’s numbers aren’t approaching 30%, they’re approaching 35%. Nixon’s numbers sank into the mid-20%’s by the time he resigned.

  • The Dems are seizing the moment with extreme gusto, as recent events have shown. Their timing is exquisite, and they’re not letting up so far. As I’ve said before many time, the Bush administration *does not know how to govern, only how to seize power and destroy their enemies.* Therefore I truly don’t believe they can recover because they simply don’t know how to do anything else than what they’ve done before.

    Bush himself is an empty shell and the public knows it now, so if the party power brokers want to survive they’re going to have to make him jump ship, which is a longshot I grant you but if they don’t then their doom is assured anyway. And even if Bush does resign or is impeached, who do they have waiting in the wings? Cheney, with his 19% favoribility rating? Hastert? DeLay? Frist? Blunt? There is not one person in a leadership position who isn’t tainted with the same corruption flowing out of the cesspool that is the White House.

    If I was a Republican I would be very afraid right now, and the evidence points indicates that they are, very much so and with very good reason.

  • Heh. It seems that Shrub put a great deal– an inordinate amount, actually– of care into making sure he didn’t repeat his father’s political mistakes.

    I guess history begins and ends with Poppy. Looks like he never considered the very real danger of repeating his father’s ex-boss’s mistakes.

  • Anyone have any idea why Rasmussen has Bush approval numbers so much higher than the other polls? W is still above 40 in Rasmussen.

  • I find it interesting that when Bush’s ratings fall to 35%, the Mainstream Media reports that “more than half” of the respondents do not approve of his handling of the job. “More than half”? Uh, MSM guys, how about “”Almost two-thirds.”

  • MAVV, no, that could be fair, if the approval/don’t know/disapproval numbers were 35/10/55, you could say barely over a third approved, and more than half disapproved, and be right both times. It all depends on what the meaning of “do not approve” is.

  • The chart is also off on the X axis – a more accurate representation would include regular intervals, not 1 month vs. 15 month spreads.

    P.S. I am among the 42% who think Bush is honest and trustworthy – I really think he is doing the best job he can to fight the terrorists. What I want to ask on these polls, however, is why we don’t see a dual “personal” approval rating like the press invented for Clinton to give him some political cover? Does anyone else remember that?

  • SP comments that Watergate took place before the ’72 election. In 1972, everyone got their news from just 3 networks, AP, UPI, the Times, the Post, Time, and Newsweek. Not a single one of these allowed mention of the break-in as anything other than a mysterious occurrence. Woodstein weren’t up to speed and although McGovern pushed topic, the media wouldn’t publish that part of his stump speech and the Dem establishment, which resented McGovern and his “reforms”, refused to allow Watergate to be a theme. “Too out there.” “What is he smoking?” Thus, no ads. Watergate was not a factor in the 1972 election because only those who pay attention (TWPA) knew the truth. It truly took Mark Felt to break through by empowering Woodstein (who we now know were scribes and gumshoes for this single source), backed by a brave Post ownership and editors.

    MSM showed abject deference to power to all presidents until Clinton–ignoring or glossing over huge personal and political failings. A short list: Kennedy (Marilyn, Bay of Pigs), Johnson (stole his first election, Tonkin), Nixon (stole his first election, enemies lists), Reagan (senile, Contras), and Bush I (Nazi-helping family, Iran-Contra). Bubba was a target from Day One, and boy was there gratitude when Bush II allowing them to re-establih their preferred posture before power–low bows and whispers of awe. Butblogs and cable have broken the Bush media barricade, empowering TWPA. Scandal after scandal has gone unreported or minimized by MSM, but the blogs have made infomration available, TWPA write letters and talk with co-workers, and the public learns anyway.

    Old media will never change their loyalty to power. Even the Jeff Guckert masquerade didn’t cause a reconsidereation of credentialing, access, standards, and what’s a “reporter.” They’re just so 20th century, and new is the future.

  • This will drag out like Watergate. A small bit of significant information will come out each month and in 3 – 6 months Rove will be gone. Then Bush will be a ship without a rudder in the political storm. He’ll continue to lurch from disaster to disaster, and his numbers will continue to erode.

    .

  • Clinton was never unpopular in spite of what the right would like us to think. In fact, he came from a kind of obscurity and soared to 60% quite quickly. Republicans had to have helped keep him at a respectably high level, right?

    If we can assume that poll respondents, though obviously not identical, were more or less the same throughout for the four presidents, it’s interesting to realize that, for all the posturing and divisiveness, a large majority of Americans want their presidents to be easy-going, communicative and liberal.

    I think Chuck is right that this will drag out. Much will depend on whether the media, who are s.l.o.w.l.y getting off their butts, will exert sufficient pressure. Which puts the ball in our court: we need to keep up pressure on the media.

  • What I want to ask on these polls, however, is why we don’t see a dual “personal” approval rating like the press invented for Clinton to give him some political cover? Does anyone else remember that?

    The emphasis on the disparity between Clinton’s “job approval” and “personal approval” numbers was to do the remarkable disparity between the two. With Bush, however, his “favorability” numbers track closely to his “job approval” numbers (with favorability being a “lagging indicator.)

    This actually spells big trouble for Bush, because past “issue polling” consistently showed that Bush’s policy positions were at odds with those of the American people on most issues. In other words, Bush’s decent job approval ratings were based on the perception that Bush was a “good guy”, rather than on the “job” he was doing for the American people.

    Thus, absent some fairly radical change in policies, its highly unlikely that Bush’s job approval ratings will recover.

    Both recent “favorability” polls (CBS and Zogby) show that half of Americans no longer trust Bush as a person. The big difference is in the approval rating…Zogby has it at 47%, while CBS has it at 33% with 12% “undecided”. This can be interpreted in a number of ways, but the most likely explanation is that CBS’s numbers reflect the extent of “solid” support while the Zogby number reflects “solid” support plus those who are giving Bush the “benefit of the doubt.”

  • There are several problems with this chart, that seveal of the commenters note above. It is always important to label the axes to know what we are looking at. What poll says he’s at 32%?

    I’m also among the group who believe in the good intentions of President Bush. I haven’t made a mistake and neither has he.

  • There is something wrong with the time scale, too. For example, the first term shouldn’t end in april, and march shouldn’t come after april.

  • Just because the chart’s axes aren’t labeled does not mean you are vindicated in your support for what has to be the worst, most damaging and incompetent president this countty has ever experienced.

    Oddly, I believe in Bush’s good intentions, too – really. It is the only thing that keeps me from labeling him a traitor. He really does believe that giving more to the rich and reducing programs for the poor will be good for the poor. He really did think that an energy policy drawn up in secret by the likes of Kennyboy Lay and Enron would work. He really did think that being the first US President EVER to start a war without being attacked was a good idea. He really does think that torturing suspects is a good thing for the CIA to do. He really did think the war in Iraq was going to be easy (moron), he really does believe his own PR that the incompetent pollitical hacks he appoints to administrative positions can do a great job.

    But most of all, he really does think, like you, that he has done absolutely nothing wrong. He isn’t pretending – he really is that stupid.

  • the first US President EVER to start a war without being attacked

    Well, except for Polk, McKinley, Wilson, and Johnson, though your overall point is true enough.

  • Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings at one time or another that were lower than Bush’s current rating. Those ratings include Lyndon Johnson’s 35%, Richard Nixon’s 24%, Gerald Ford’s 37%, Jimmy Carter’s 28%, Ronald Reagan’s 35%, the elder George Bush’s 29% and Bill Clinton’s 37%.

  • KCZ said Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings at one time or another

    How about some links to back that up?

  • I’m sure that Bush has good intentions too, at least he doesn’t have bad ones, but since he has failed at everything he has attempted in his wretched spoon-fed life, it is not surprising that his administration has followed the same pattern. They are uncany in the extent to which they mess up 100% of the things they attempt to do. Even a dead clock is right twice a day, but these guys fall short of that level of performance.

    Whether or not this particular chart is correct in its fine details, it is clear that the public is gradually becoming less deluded about this administration. God only knows why it has taken this long.

    One point to keep in mind is that the Chimp’s numbers will improve a little bit as the wack-o elements of the GOP jump back on board with his nomination of Scalia Jr.

    Bush really did believe that Brownie was doing a heck of a job. He really did.

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