The 20s

May 12, 2006

The difference between a 31% [tag]approval rating[/tag] and a 29% approval rating isn’t much, but there seems to be something psychologically significant about breaking into the 20s. It’s the tier at which Nixon was driven from office. It’s the level that [tag]Carter[/tag] and [tag]Bush[/tag] the elder never reached.

Earlier this week, ABC News’ The Note, which frequently helps capture insider conventional wisdom, reported:

What would be on The Note’s to-do list if it had the [White House chief of staff] position today?

1. Whatever it takes, do not let the President’s job approval rating fall into the 20s in any public [tag]survey[/tag].

With this in mind, the latest [tag]poll[/tag] from [tag]Harris Interactive[/tag] has to be considered bad news.

President Bush’s job approval rating has fallen to 29%, its lowest mark of his presidency, and down 6% in one month, according to a new Harris poll. And this was before Thursday’s revelations about NSA phone surveillance.

Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 29% think Mr. Bush is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president, down from 35% in April and 43% in January.

There is, however, one important caveat: Harris Interactive conducts its surveys online. The methodology has faced considerable criticism for years, though Harris and the Wall Street Journal vigorously defend it. [Editor’s note: My mistake. It was a telephone poll.]

In terms of political salience, the “Bush hits the 20s” story probably won’t be quite as a big a deal until it happens in one of the traditional national polls. In other words, give it a week or so.

I believe that Carter reached 26% in 1978. I can’t recall when exactly, but he made it below the political Mendoza line along with Nixon and Truman.

  • I’m holding out. “Jump the Shark” time has not yet arrived. Wake me up when three major polls hit 25% job approval for Bush–or 70% disapproval (7 out of 10 people disapproving may release the parking brake on the “impeachment train”–and down the hill, it will roll.).

  • Maybe keeping his polls up in the 30s is what he hopes to accomplish with his immigration speech on Monday night.

    I think all he’ll do is piss off a lot of people who want to watch an evil, corrupt, and fake Presdient…you know, on “24.”

  • I dredged up a USA Today article from seven months ago that said Bush senior’s low point in the polls was 29%. Like father, like son.

    Also, the linked article said the Harris poll was by telephone, not online. Which is correct?

  • Also, the linked article said the Harris poll was by telephone, not online.

    My mistake. Harris Interactive almost always does online polling, but this was, in fact, a telephone poll. Thanks, Jeff R, for catching this.

  • yeah, CB, what you excerpted says “telephone” for this poll:

    Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 29% think Mr. Bush is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president, down

    (just making sure you notice!)

    But anyway-

    damn!! As in– that’s amazing.

    But when Bush keeps giving Olbermann/Colbert/Letterman et al such great material to work with, I mean, what can you do?

    Unfortunately, the goon-squad 20% are positioned to keep doing tremendous damage to the country, while the rest of the country protests- like in Congress, Fox News Channel, etc.

    Bush, how low can you go???

  • 29% !!!!!!!

    Josh Bolton must be twisting this morning. Expect lots of comments about how this is one deeply flawed poll. Preserve these comments in your memory and your video files. When more polls start falling below 29%, pull out these comments.

    The NSA telephone number collection program is going to chip away at Boy George II’s libertarian supporters (are there any?). He can fall further.

  • How is the NRA ringing in on this? Nobody should know how many and what kind of guns they have, but its ok if the government listens to every phone call? WTF?

  • What does it say about the American people that they think Bush II is no worse than Bush I? I also heard that Carter’s ratings had plunged into the 20s. This is the worst president in history, for God sakes. Where’s the outrage? Where are the demonstrations? If it weren’t for the polls, would there be any evidence at all that the American people aren’t satisfied with Bush? Think about it. Something’s really wrong in America.

  • Man the fatigue is getting really bad. I blame unimmunized illegal immigrants for bringing back political fatigue to this country.

    Hopefully the GOP midterm election slogan of “don’t vote for democrats, they’ll impeach Bush” is going to work against them.

  • If there was an election today would he still win? Even with these low numbers somehow he miraculously would win courtesy of Diebold.

  • CB, you’ve been watching his numbers more than most of the rest of us. They’ve been going down fairly steadily for how long now? Sometimes it’s “another week, another point” sometimes it’s only another day. Am I far off?

  • I hear the outrage about Bush everyday. I hear it from my coleagues at work, friends and family, and many embarassed Republicans. I think the corruption is so pervasive and so far reaching that we all have fatigue. I am worried that Bush is insane, and he might bomb Iran or something in desperation, and the Republicans in Congress might rally around him in a desperate act of self preservation. I put nothing past this bunch. I am 62 year old and have been paying attention to politics since I was in high school. Never in my life have I seen such corruption and such a naked power grab. I am afraid, and I think I am not the only one.

  • Although sometimes a singular outrage can drive down a poll (the Dubai ports deal for example), most Americans get their “news” and opinions by osmosis. The 29% favorable poll, whether well conducted or not, will seep through the consciousness of the masses and result in further erosion of Bush’s support. It’s the bandwagon factor–nobody likes backing a loser.

    That said, I agree completely with hark. The worst pResident ever should have favorability at 5% (the nutjob population) and people demonstrating in the streets. But Americans have grown fat, lazy and completely self interested. That’s why I favor bringing back the draft as a first step to getting people to put a stop to what’s being done to this country.Too many still feel personally immune to the outrages. I despair to think how that could still be.

    Sadly, MNcowboy, I think the answer may be that the Diebold factor could mean Bush would win again. The last pre-election polls were very close, yet Bush felt comfortable going to take a nap with days of campaigning left and didn’t look worried. Why? My tin hat tells me that he knew he had nothing to worry about. Let’s see how the Rethugs, who are purportedly in such trouble, fare in the midterms. Between apathy and corruption, we may never get rid of this people poisoning our country.

  • Seems like the thing we have to remember is that George isn’t on the ballot this year. And that while generic polls on leading congress have the Dems up vs GOP as W has gone down – things are going to get really ugly soon, per Fineman’s op-ed yesterday. When we move from generic dem to a dem with a face (namely Nancy’s or Harry’s face), are we still going to do so well at the polls? I guess I’m just saying that people were tired of George in 2004, giving him 47% approval, but they still gave him 51% of the votes. I just think we should be careful about equating 29% to the dems automatically doing well this year. There are so many structural hurdles in the way.

  • hark and Frak have it nailed, with one exception. The American people are what they’ve always been, and it’s unlikely they’ll be “reborn” (except for outside possible of rebirth as an unhealthy theocracy). What’s changed in the power of corporations to control our lives.

    They’ve got us all isolated as “consumer units”, drugged by our own individual (not family) TV sets, stoned on our ear-plugged iPod collection of 8,000 albums of junk, 24/7 pager connections to our employers/exploiters, and so on.

    I don’t know what the readership of TCB is amounts to quantitatively, but there’s no means for us (or any other blogger group) to take collective action against the corporations which are driving everything toward control by multinationals.

    And even if there were, both the Republican and the Democratic elected “representatives” represent ONLY their corporate donors. At best our complaints are merely documenting the final days of the Constituional dreams of our Founding Fathers.

  • I don’t know what the readership of TCB is amounts to quantitatively, but there’s no means for us (or any other blogger group) to take collective action against the corporations which are driving everything toward control by multinationals.

    And even if there were, both the Republican and the Democratic elected “representatives” represent ONLY their corporate donors. At best our complaints are merely documenting the final days of the Constituional dreams of our Founding Fathers. —Ed Stephan

    I agree with everything you are saying, but besides “documenting the final days” we also know that we are not alone. We are like pamphleteers, railing against the excesses of Catholicism during the reformation. We are just individuals, it is true, and one day (if they have their way) we may be silenced, but in the meantime, lets keep talking to each other. For all we know we could be the start of a new reformation. I like to think so.

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