GOP banking on Bush getting more popular

January 11, 2008

The president’s abysmal poll numbers aren’t worth noting anymore; there’s just no point. He’s extraordinarily unpopular; he’s reviled around the world; and his would-be Republican successors are embarrassed to say his name in public. It’s hardly worth mentioning anymore.

But U.S. News noted this week, however, that the White House is eyeing a Bush comeback.

He’s a poll cellar-dweller whom even GOP presidential candidates sneer at, but George W. Bush and some congressional backers see happy days for the prez this year. His fans have dubbed it his “legacy year,” when they hope to lock in his achievements on the domestic front.

Among the items Bush’s GOP congressional allies want to work on this month: continuing his tax cuts and extending the controversial No Child Left Behind Act. As for the war, they say, the news has been good, and Bushies believe that their guy will eventually get credit for opening the war on terrorism. But more immediately, they are predicting a remarkable poll shift to about 45 percent favorable by the time he leaves office next year.

“Legacy year”? It seems unlikely. He’s the lamest of lame-ducks — rock-bottom public support, Democratic Congress, and the absence of a policy agenda. I was especially amused by the notion that the White House is anxious to work with his “GOP congressional allies” on “continuing his tax cuts.” They do know the Dems are in the majority in both chambers, don’t they?

As for the notion of a “remarkable poll shift” to 45%, I suppose anything’s possible, but this seems like wishful thinking gone horribly awry.

First, TP posted a chart showing the stability of Bush’s disapproval. He’s been in the low 30s for over a year, and it’s hard to imagine where this “remarkable” bump is going to come from, especially given the fact that most Americans are ready to shift their attention to electing the next president and putting this painful chapter in our history behind us.

Second, let’s say the White House’s optimism is not ridiculous, and that Bush really can work his way back up to 45%. At that point, he’ll be the eighth least popular president of the last four decades, instead of the ninth. End-of-presidency job approval ratings:

Bill Clinton (2001) — 65%
Ronald Reagan (1989) — 64%
John F. Kennedy (1963) — 63
Dwight Eisenhower (1961) — 59%
George H.W. Bush (1993) — 56%
Gerald Ford (1977) — 53%
Lyndon Johnson (1969) — 49%
Jimmy Carter (1981) — 34%
Richard Nixon (1974) — 24%

As of now, George W. Bush is on track to finish below Carter. Even with a “remarkable” turn around, the Bush gang is still aiming pretty low.

“it’s hard to imagine where this ‘remarkable’ bump is going to come from…”

I suspect it has something to do with his recent promise to single-handedly broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty and oversee the creation of a Palestinian state before the end of his term, which you haven’t yet commented on. You have to admit that would give him quite a bounce, but the odds of it happening seem rather slim, to put it charitably.

  • And here I thought Osama bin Laden started the war on Terror.

    As for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, it doesn’t really seem like they want it, not with Israel expanding settlements and the Palestinians shooting off rockets out of Gaza.

    Lots of wishful thinking going on.

  • To get to that level of ‘approval’ for Bush, all that is needed is to have it voted on… Of course, that is using Diebold equipment & electronic voting & the standard repugnican linked companies providing the tabulating!

  • Maybe people will look at the reThug candidates and come to the conclusion that, compared to them, W doesn’t look so bad?

    Just wondrin.

  • All things are possible to him that believeth. You just need to keep having faith. Or use the Secret, or something. It’s worked for Bush so far. As far as he knows, things are fine.

  • I would suggest he’s as low as he can go. If you’re still with him at this point you’re either brain dead or greedy to a fault. Given that, he has only one way to go.

    If the brain dead media keep repeating the McCain/Lieberman mantra: “The Surge was a complete success,” than I believe Bush will get a bump.

    He should be ‘the lamest of lame-ducks,’ but the opposition leadership has failed to challenge him on everything. The only success I can think of off hand was keeping Congress in session over the Winter break to avoid any recess appointments, but what does that matter, they’ll just approve anyone he sends up anyway.

    Honestly, I doubt Bush can get back a lot of the support he’s lost, but the perception that the war is going better could sway a lot of people who just read headlines.

    I’m also not entirely sure that bombing Iran wouldn’t give him a temporary bump. All that he would need is a plausible reason to walk down the red carpet Kyl-Lieberman rolled out for him. Like a perceived act of aggression on US forces by Iran.

    But they wouldn’t be so stupid, and it’s not like our government would just make something like that up, right?

  • This is just the usual WH market-making. When they get back off their “need a vacation” tour, what else have they got to do?

  • “Separate but equal” was a segregationist agenda in the United States once; it failed miserably. Bush now wants to employ the ever-present “Two States Strategy” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue—and it’ll work just as well there as it did in the public schools here. The only viable solution to the MidEast debacle—a solution that would probably be acceptable even to Iran’s senior clerics—would be to establish one open state, with “Israel” and “Palestine” effectively becoming synonymous with one another.

    Expand the old “Temple Mount” area of Jerusalem; rebuild the Great Temple right next door to the Dome of the Rock, and let the two magnificent edifices be neighbors. Don’t stop building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza—but make the settlements open to both Israelis AND Palestinians. Combine the markets and public venues. Combine the local government infrastructures—and yes, that means putting representatives of Hamas and Likud in the same blasted room..Make this a “we” thing instead of a “be-me-or-my-enemy” model.

    Bush Bush is too dumb to think of that—so he won’t have any “legacy.”

    Unless a “legacy” can be “making Nixon look good….”

  • Huh, what happened to the prez who didn’t pay attention to the polls?

    But look, Jesus rose from the dead, Bush looks in the mirror and sees the face of God, I’m sure he thinks rising in the polls will be a cakewalk.

    This whole thing is particularly amusing in light of the latest from The Onion.

  • And the winner IS doubtful@7…

    “He should be ‘the lamest of lame-ducks,’ but the opposition leadership has failed to challenge him on everything. The only success I can think of off hand was keeping Congress in session over the Winter break to avoid any recess appointments, but what does that matter, they’ll just approve anyone he sends up anyway”

    Hopefully we only have one year more – I have a calender somewhere that gives the exact day-left count – of this disaster. Maybe we’ll get a Democratic president and Congressional leaders with balls.

  • Based on the financial news, the American economy may be in the process of tanking. Apparently there are numerous causes, but the biggest one seems to be the “Bankers Gone Wild” mortgage debacle. Republicans are calling for a “stimulus package” (code for more tax cuts), since huge deficits don’t matter any more. Although they used to.

    It’s been years since I had an economics course, but I seem to remember that huge spending on a war was itself an economic stimulus. We already have that. Deficit spending is a stimulus. We already have that in spades. The Fed will probably cut interest rates a slice at a time to near zero, but we’ve been there before, and look how it created a housing and mortgage bubble. Are we out of bullets to fight off a recession?

    Which brings me back to the subject of the thread: how would a tanking economy affect Bush’s popularity during his “legacy” year and the election season? My guess: not favorably. We might see a whole new crop of Democrats running on Bill Clinton’s mantra: “It’s the economy, Stupid.”

  • phoebes said: “Maybe we’ll get a Democratic president and Congressional leaders with balls.”

    Do we want Congressional Leaders with balls if we get a Democratic President? Seems to me Congress gave Jimmy Carter nothing but grief and the first two years with Bill Clinton was nothing to crow about either.

    Okay, they need some, but let’s not go overboard.

  • Oh yes Okie, you have a point.

    BGII is heading down. The floor is just Republican’ts who will lie to the pollsters rather than admit they were wrong.

  • His only saving grace will be that the elections will take enough attention away from his conflict that his numbers could improve. The saddest part is that next year there will be a president with significantly less powers and his every mistake will be published in every newspaper as congress and the media will decide it is time to appear that they are doing their jobs. Until then, status quo.

  • I think Okie’s comment is spot on–the economy issue will preempt any potential for a bump to 45%.

    That said, who know. This seems appropriate here:

    Some things in life are bad
    They can really make you mad
    Other things just make you swear and curse.
    When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
    Don’t grumble, give a whistle
    And this’ll help things turn out for the best…

    And…always look on the bright side of life…
    Always look on the light side of life…

    If life seems jolly rotten
    There’s something you’ve forgotten
    And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
    When you’re feeling in the dumps
    Don’t be silly chumps
    Just purse your lips and whistle – that’s the thing.

    And…always look on the bright side of life…
    Always look on the light side of life…

    For life is quite absurd
    And death’s the final word
    You must always face the curtain with a bow.
    Forget about your sin – give the audience a grin
    Enjoy it – it’s your last chance anyhow.

    So always look on the bright side of death
    Just before you draw your terminal breath

    Life’s a piece of shit
    When you look at it
    Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true.
    You’ll see it’s all a show
    Keep ’em laughing as you go
    Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

    And always look on the bright side of life…
    Always look on the right side of life…
    (Come on guys, cheer up!)
    Always look on the bright side of life…
    Always look on the bright side of life…
    (Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
    Always look on the bright side of life…
    (I mean – what have you got to lose?)
    (You know, you come from nothing – you’re going back to nothing.
    What have you lost? Nothing!)
    Always look on the right side of life…

  • “The saddest part is that next year there will be a president with significantly less powers…”

    Which can, potentially, make this the most dangerous year of the Bush/Cheney Sadministration.

  • There is precisely one action Bush can take which would delight 65% of the country.

    He can resign immediately. After firing Cheney.

  • I just visited the CNN scorecard thing for all the delegates, and I thought Barack was neck and neck with Hillary, but apparently she has more of something called superdelegates. What??? What’s a superdelegate?

  • Perhaps if:
    He developed a conscience leading him to:
    Donate all of the family fortune he could get his hands on to the wounded vets and survivors of the military killed in Iraq;
    Recinded the various bonanzas given to the uber-wealthy, and (this is the deal breaker);
    Incarcerated the Neo-Cons for trial at the Haugue after summarily executing Cheney & committing suicide.

    Then I might almost half like him.

  • I saw this last night and did the usual – laughed out loud. I also laughed when I heard Bush put the whole Middle East on notice that it was their job to settle, once and for all, the territorial and other problems associated with creating a permanent Palestinian state, and to do it before he leaves office. This man’s ego knows no bounds, does it?

    And imagining all the things this administration could haul out of bottomless bag of tricks in order to boost the fortunes of the worst president ever, and to increase the chances of installing another president from the same political party that could give us 8 more years of it – well, that’s nothing to laugh about.

  • Well, it looks like that thieving fascist Ehud Olmert has realized his gang of crooks now running Israel aren’t going to get a better deal in 2009 than they can get in 2008 – if it means they can thereby help their buddies the Christian Zionists of the American Right to hang on and not be crushed. I guess that would count for Bush’s “legacy.” Watch this one: the Israelis will use their usual concoction of lies to convince everyone that “progress is at hand” and it’s all because of Georgie (and then they’ll once again pull the rug out from under everything the day after the elections if the GOP wins).

    The Republicans thinking they are going to get anywhere on Bush’s taxes (especially as things continue to tank for all the middle class while the ruling class continues eating cake), or No Child Left Educated (do they recall the Democrats have a major constituency known as the Teacher’s Unions?) shows that they continue to live in fantasy land.

  • Bush’s support has held pretty steady at core levels plus-or-minus margin of error for well over a year now. People except for pure partisans have simply stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt and won’t credit him for any short term upticks that might happen in the next year. Unless Bush does something that radically departs from what’s come before–i.e. pull out of Iraq, work with Congress to get universal health care before the election, throw a lot of his criminal underlings in jail–his numbers aren’t going to move regardless of how the economy or war in Iraq go, because the people who might credit him for improvements in those areas already support the job he’s doing.

  • Among the items Bush’s GOP congressional allies want to work on this month: continuing his tax cuts and extending the controversial No Child Left Behind Act.

    If any Democrat in the leadership of either house does anything in response to this but laugh and raise her/his middle finger in Mitch McConnell’s ugly mug, I think it’s time for torches, pitchforks, boiling tar and plucked feathers.

    Seriously. I know none of us are happy with the Dems in Congress, but it’s one (despicable) thing to fold on funding the war, quite another to Assume the Position on more Paris Hilton Windfalls and No Child Left to Learn. The administration deserves to hear what Cheney said to Leahy, every single goddamn day until they leave in disgrace.

  • Lance said: Do we want Congressional Leaders with balls if we get a Democratic President? Seems to me Congress gave Jimmy Carter nothing but grief and the first two years with Bill Clinton was nothing to crow about either.

    Given what a putz Carter was while in office, and how much we’ll have to watch the Clintons like hawks (assuming they get back in the White House) to keep them from robbing us blind and giving the proceeds to Wall Street while everyone’s fixated on the “shiny object” of their continuing psychodrama – yes, we definitely need a filibuster-proof Senate and a veto-proof Congress.

    Particularly since sHillary as the candidate means McCain in the White House (assuming they both get through the primaries and are the candidates, something I am not prognosticating here).

  • With the the horse race dominating the news, the media playing the everything-is-going-swimmingly in Iraq card, and Bush going lame duck low profile (the mideast gig should be forgotten in a couple of months) Bush could very well reach 45%.
    And in my mind that’s a disaster. I’m convinced that this guy is the worst thing that ever happened to this country, and at 45% it will go largely unnoticed, and so we won’t learn anything from this catastrophe. And at 45%, we could very well wind up with one of those Republican idiots as president, for four more years of backwards leadership.

    It just amazes me that Iraq has disappeared as an issue as far as the media is concerned. It doesn’t bother them how pointless, how criminal, how costly in blood and treasure this war has been. It only matters how it ends up, and it seems that it will be assessed in terms of how much better things are compared to the low point, rather than in terms of what this idiotic venture cost us. Don’t forget all the issues the war prevented us from addressing, either, like energy and global warming and health care.

    Sometimes I just despair for this country. The media are too comfortable, and the people too stupid, to get us out of this rut. And at 45%, history won’t even acknowledge that we’re in a rut.

    The Democrats ought to be blasting Bush day and night. If you read sites like Huffpo, you see liberals blasting Hillary with everything they’ve got, and leaving Bush alone. That’s crazy, and disastrous in the long run.

  • Whoever the president is, and whichever party, we should want a strong legislature to keep the Executive Superduperpowers in check and defend our better governance traditions.

    That said, Tom C’s got it exactly right: the need for vigilant defense of constitutional prerogatives will be especially high if it’s the secretive, dishonest and authoritarian Clintons back in office. The thought of Her Majesty taking the reins of Addison’s Monster is only slightly less frightening than Il Douche or Romney in the saddle.

  • Oh, and as regards “the first two years with Bill Clinton was nothing to crow about”…

    That was entirely the fault of the incompetent “Co-Presidents” Clinton.

    Hillary decided she was The One (being a genius in her own mind) to create health care and did nothing to create any alliances with the Congressional powers-that-be and get them aboard the program (which is how FDR got his stuff, how LBJ got Civil Rights and Medicare). Thus when she got attacked by the Republicans she had no allies, no “co-parents” of the program, and went down. That was incompetence.

    And “genius” Bill managed to flub the same test of creating allies in Congress for his programs – backing down on DADT, his feckless incompetence in foreign affairs where he could have aborted the Balkan War with some leadership and collaboration with the foreign policy leaders in Congress, etc.

    They’re the two most over-rated “Democrats” of the 20th Century.

  • Tom Cleaver – the level of your vitriol where the Clintons is concerned is reaching – maybe even surpassing – Tweety-like levels, and your continuing to believe you know what they were – and are – thinking, and what their motives were and are is making your rants less than believable, and not particularly useful to the discussion.

    I usually appreciate your insight and your perspective on other issues, but it’s clear that you hate the Clintons as much, if not more than, the right-wing conspiracy theorists, Bill O’Reilly, and the crazies who call into C-SPAN, and it threatens to relegate you to a place where no one takes anything you say seriously.

    I’m all for looking at things from more than one side, and from more than one perspective, but the one place none of us can look at anything from is the inside of someone else’s mind or heart. Facts I can deal with – mind-reading, not so much.

  • For an article from a non-partisan publication, this has a cozy tone, don’t you think? It’s written like a close-up on a team in a sports magazine. He’s the “prez” and then there’s this: “As for the war, they say, the news has been good, and Bushies believe that their guy. . .” That coziness is even besides the fact that most of us politics-followers use the term “Bushies” to refer to cronies and unscrupulous, inexpert zealots who have been propelled into positions of responsibility in government. The writer makes them sound like they’re the cheese-heads, or something. I remember Bushes’ staff themselves trying to resurrect the term in the context of a congressional inquiry into the U.S. attorney firings, when they tried to characterize it as something less than someone they counted on to be a political hatchet-man for them.

  • CB, thanks for the stats. The Republicans are probaby hoping that for years to come, when Bush is discussed on TV shows, they’ll be able to say, “Well, his end-of-term-approval rating was 45%. Carter’s was 34%!!!!!” to try to make it sound to the uninformed viewer as if the man/woman in the suit talking about politics on TV thinks that difference is very significant. But even if Bush does end up floating up that high (probably with some help from the type of mainstream media sources tha wrote this article), the thing for Dems to do when that comes up is know the other figures, and immediately cut the guy off, and say “Yeah, but Clinton was 65%, Eisenhower 59%, Gerald Ford 53%. . .” and so on.

  • Well, he’s kicking off his legacy year with a fabulous failure trip to get Israel/Palestinian peace–new ground for him. I think his legacy should be first pResident to be jailed for high crimes and misdemeanors after office.

  • Let me go out on a limb here and say whatever grand and glorious plan Bush has for a comeback, if there is one, will make his approval rating go even lower than it is now.

  • Memekiller said: “Let me go out on a limb here and say whatever grand and glorious plan Bush has for a comeback, if there is one, will make his approval rating go even lower than it is now.”

    Considering he’s started by attacking Israel (from the perspective of the limited base he still holds) I have to say that’s probably going to be true.

    Fixing “No Child Left Behind” isn’t likely to please them either…

  • Oh yeah, we’ll remember the Bush legacy for many, many years to come. When someone rings up your credit card to the limit and then stiffs you with the bill, you don’t forget that sort of stuff.

  • Hell, everyone is already trying to pretend that Bush doesn’t exist and never did. Wasn’t it meant to be No Sick Child Left Behind. Bush couldn’t even bring himself to sign the SCHIP bill…He’s done nothing for the good of this country at all. His 30% approval includes those involved in his corruption or have just closed their eyes to the evidence. The only way to not know is to not want to know how much damage this administration has caused the US and the world. The question is can we make it through the rest of his term without further embarrassment as this incompetent statesmen proves how lame he is on ME policy issues while making himself a target in his jaunts through terrorist territory (he was still a president elected in a year ending in zero so has the assassination curse as only one president elected in a zero yr has escaped being assassinated while still in office). The GOP wants him out of the country to keep him physically unavailable to cause them further embarrassment at home but no other country really welcomes his visits either as he causes international embarrassment.

    He is not just unpopular, he is considered pathetic. Trying to give Germany’s prime minister a back rub…just sitting there in that classroom while the country was under attack…and making jokes about WMD while our soldiers were being killed searching for them…countless non-sensical speech flubs…the list is endless. The question is: are there people out there who ‘don’t’ make fun of him. The GOP boasts of a comeback while the public wants him indicted. Accountability not allowed by the Fox GOP. Just pathetic.

    ***btw Cleaver***Anne is right. You cease having clarity of thought when you start in with the Clintons. Your hatred is so apparent that you never miss framing anything related to them with vile phrases and spiteful slurs to the point that it is annoying and insulting to reason. Get a grip on your hate will ya? Your innuendo, as if somehow you know what motivates the Clintons, are simply your assumptions and your assumptions are clearly tainted.

  • Has anyone else noticed that Huffington Post has become rabid in its hatred of Hillary?

    Bush is a worse joke than Jimmy Carter could ever imagine being. But I sincerely doubt that after office Bush will devote the rest of his life to helping people.

    And another thing, I heartily agree that we all want a strong legislative branch regardless of the person elected president.

    That’s my two cents worth.

  • I have a subprime loan for GOP….since they’re strapped for donations and Po’ Rudy “and Partners” Giuliani doesn’t have the scratch to pay his staffers. No taxpayers to foot the bill for his footloose affairs anymore.

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