Not quite two weeks ago, news outlets had it all figured out for us: [tag]Bush[/tag] has the momentum and will inevitably surge in the polls. Indeed, in many instances, the media didn’t wait for the public to express their [tag]approval[/tag]; they simply asserted it.
Knight Ridder said Bush “is on a bit of a roll.” Roll Call reported that “Republicans are taking the past two weeks’ run of good news as evidence that the party’s political fortunes may be on the rebound.” The WaPo emphasized the “spate of positive developments” that may interrupt “the president’s months-long slide in opinion [tag]polls[/tag].” The New York Daily News quoted a top Republican source saying, “We’ve got so much good news popping out these days I don’t know where to start.”
That was shortly after Zarqawi had been killed. So, how big a “Bush [tag]bounce[/tag]” are we talking about here? Well, as it turns out, it’s a pretty modest one.
Bush’s approval rating is at 37%. After hitting the low point of his presidency at 31% in May, it rose to 38% in mid-June. His standing, which slipped below 40% in February, hasn’t rebounded above that level since then.
In other words, according to [tag]Gallup[/tag], the president’s support has slipped a little since the headlines trumpeted all of the good fortune that had come Bush’s way.
The president fared a little better in a new Washington Post/ABC News [tag]poll[/tag], where is approval rating is up to 38%, but that’s the same as it was in April. For that matter, 48% of Americans in this poll said they “strongly disapprove” of how Bush is handling his job — an all-time high in a Post/ABC poll. A big Bush bounce? I don’t think so.
The polls also had some interesting data on public perceptions about the war in Iraq.
A majority of Americans say Congress should pass a resolution that outlines a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, according to a [tag]USA TODAY[/tag]/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday. […]
The poll finds support for the ideas behind Democratic proposals that were soundly defeated in the Senate last week. An uptick in optimism toward the war after the killing of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi earlier this month seems to have evaporated.
In all, USAT/Gallup found that 57% of Americans believe Congress should pass a resolution that outlines a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops, and 50% want redeployment “immediately or within 12 months.”
The Post/ABC numbers were slightly different — 51% said we shouldn’t set a deadline; 47% said we should — but the momentum seems to be shifting in a more progressive direction. In December, 60% said no deadline, while 39% wanted one, but after a week of non-stop “[tag]cut and run[/tag]” rhetoric from the [tag]GOP[/tag], a deadline for withdrawing/deploying troops seems to be far more popular than it was a few months ago.
Why so many congressional [tag]Democrats[/tag] are afraid of taking a popular position on the war is a mystery.