‘The worst president since Ulysses S. Grant’

September 7, 2006

In 2004, the gender gap shrunk. Kerry beat Bush among women voters, but by a narrow three-point margin, which was significantly smaller than the advantage Clinton and Gore had in previous cycles. Among women in the South, the gap swung in the other direction entirely — Bush won 54% of Southern female voters.

The AP, however, notes in a fascinating item this morning that Bush’s “once-solid relationship with Southern women is on the rocks.”

“I think history will show him to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant,” said Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth and the mother of three. “He’s been an embarrassment.” In the heart of Dixie, comparisons to Grant, a symbol of the Union, is the worst sort of insult, especially from a Macon woman who voted for Bush in 2000 but turned away in 2004. […]

“In 2004, you saw an utter collapse of the gender gap in the South,” said Karen Kaufmann, a professor of government at the University of Maryland who has studied women’s voting patterns. White Southern women liked Bush because “he spoke their religion and he spoke their values.”

Now, anger over the Iraq war and frustration with the country’s direction have taken a toll on the president’s popularity and stirred dissatisfaction with the Republican-held Congress.

The evidence goes beyond amusing anecdotes. The most recent AP-Ipsos poll found that three out of five Southern women (60%) plan to vote for a Dem in the midterm elections.

What’s driving the trend? Take a wild guess.

The movement of some Southern women away from the Republican Party tracks with national poll results showing that women have become more disillusioned with the war and were more likely than men to list the conflict as the important issue facing the country.

Nationally, the AP-Ipsos poll found that only 28 percent of women approve of Bush’s handling of the war. Bush did better in the South, but only slightly — just 32 percent of women in the region said they approve of his handling of the war.

“I never did understand why we went into Iraq and didn’t instead clean up the mess in Afghanistan first,” Knight said.

Knight added, “I’m going to go for the moderate, and these days that tends to be Democrats.”

“The movement of some Southern women away from the Republican Party tracks with national poll results showing that women have become more disillusioned with the war and were more likely than men to list the conflict as the important issue facing the country.”

We can hope I suppose. These ladies are the ones who are sending their sons (and daughters) off to the military and putting “support the troops” magnets on their Minivans and actually holding bake sales to buy body armor when the Pentagon falls on its face. If they have finally gotten to the point of wondering why so many of their children come home through Dover Air Force Base while Iraq doesn’t get better, we might be able to save America after all.

  • I wondered how long it would take Rove’s (and the rest of the Bush Crime Family’s) blatant and smug anti-woman stance to generate this reaction. Welcome to the reality-based community, y’all.

  • A more typical GOP supporter was at the bottom of the article.

    “There are some people, and I’m one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord,” Tomanio said. “I don’t care how he governs, I will support him. I’m a Republican through and through.”

  • “I think history will show him to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant,” said Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth and the mother of three. “He’s been an embarrassment.”

    HA-ha! *in a Nelson Muntz voice*

    finally! 🙂

  • “I think history will show [the Regal Moron] to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant….”

    This is clearly an insult to the beloved memory of our actually elected President , Ulysses S. Grant (nee Hiram Ulysses) who, at least, proved himself capable of winning our bloody Civil War, holding his liquor, and writing his very successful Memoirs.

  • Very sad to hear that southern women may be critical to turning this country around. My hope of turning this country around diminishes daily.

  • “There are some people, and I’m one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord,” Tomanio said. “I don’t care how he governs, I will support him. I’m a Republican through and through.”

    How can anybody be that crazy? Seriously.
    It scares me to think about what a large percentage of the population actually thinks this way…

  • Is it churlish to bring up my suspicion that one reason Grant is considered the “worst president” is that he was the only president to make a serious commitment to Reconstruction?

    (BTW, the GOPs reputation for fiscal responsibility has its origins in the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. He’s an interesting guy. If you haven’t visited with him since history classes, I suggest getting to know him. I recommend the biography by Jean Edward Smith.)

  • I agree with Lance. I am the mother of an 18 year old son and a 17 year old daughter. We live in central FL, which I don’t necessarily count as the “south”. I can’t quite shake the fear that we will eventually need the draft for this disastrous war game this administration has gotten us into.

  • After eight years of relative peace and prosperity under Clinton, I remember hearing people say that it really didn’t matter who was in charge, the economy and the country would just carry on as usual.

    It’s taken far too much time, too much death, too much suffering around the world, but people are finally waking up to the fact that it really does matter who is in charge. It matters very much.

  • Thank you Cindy Sheehan!!!

    I think we owe this turnaround to the courage and dedication of Cindy Sheehan, and, especially, to the callousness and rudeness and disrespect with which Shrub treated her.

    Nothing pisses off southerners– especially southern women– like rudeness or impoliteness. And, nothing pisses off mothers than having the deaths of their children treated callously. I think Cindy Sheehan exposed Shrub’s weakness: his innate sadism and meanness.

    Imagine how Clinton, for example, would have treated that situation. Shrub emphatically does not “feel your pain”.

    In the Shrub/Kerry debate of 2004, someone remarked that Shrub’s rudeness in interrupting the moderator spoke to his true nature: he’s America’s Ex-Husband, you know, the asshole who doesn’t want to pay his child support, that guy.

    Thanks again, Cindy Sheehan of California. You may have given us back the south.

  • jwinfl, you sound like my mother in the late 60’s – she had four boys not yet of draft age and was scared to death we were going to Vietnam. Fortunately, we got out of Vietnam before I, the oldest, reached draft age. I think you feel the same as a lot of mothers out there.

  • Grant was a far better President than the sixth-generation traitors think of him as being. His problem – and it was a big one – was that his political inexperience led to his easy manipulation by people he thought better of than he should have.

    Neither Grant – nor his friend the head of the Army of the West, General Sherman – wanted the Indian Wars. They had seen enough blood and misery. The guy Grant appointed to go write all those treaties that were to last “so long as the wind shall blow and the grass shall grow” (whose name escapes me at the moment) was a Quaker who was a long-time opponent of “the only good Indian is dead.” Given that the Southerners had been the major proponents of genocide (see: Trail of Tears) while Northerners had been more “live and let live” (relatively speaking, but look at how many Native American tribes still live in their original areas of the north, and in pretty substantial numbers, as compared with the South). Unfortunately for Grant, those in the Republican Party who looked at the west and saw gold, land, timber, and profits to be made in general saw the Native Americans as impediments, and had no problem with killing them off. Civil War veterans like my great-great-grandfather Henry Weist, whose photos show a drunkard, a man who the record reveals was violent to his family, and from his combat record likely suffering severe PTSS, had no problem becoming “buffalo hunters” and then “indian fighters” and doing what they had learned to do in the Civil War: kill kill kill and kill again.

    Grant really did try to enforce Reconstruction, which is why the South hates him – that and the fact that he thoroughly defeated the Sainted Traitor, Robert E. Lee.

    Read Grant’s “Memoirs” (thank you, Samuel Clemens, for first publishing them at your own expense). He was the country’s best general, and a well-intentioned man as President.

    Screw the traitors – I don’t care how those morons vote.

  • Grant was an under appreciated President. This is becoming more clear with the passage of time.

    Bush, Jr., is not close to the same league as Grant.

    I also recommend reading Grant and Sherman’s memoirs.

  • Yup. I’d like to leave Grant out of it. Seems grossly unfair to Grant. Give Bush another few months and the general consensus will be just “worst president.” Wouldn’t it be lovely if vision cleared sufficiently to put Reagan in second place, after Bush?

    BTW. Isn’t it interesting how Barry Goldwater, nemesis of my generation, is now looking kind of like a conservative hero? I don’t know whether John Dean touched this off, or whether his resuscitation was underway already, but there it is: Goldwater.

  • I still think that white america is still very much asleep at the voting switch. They will do whatever dumbya and rove tell them to do. More wars ie. Iran and Korea, more loss of $ (billions with a B) and young american lives. There will be a draft after the Nov election to get your sons and daughters ready to fight these wars. White Americans like war, just ask the neocon-men.

  • Please don’t make this into a race issue. The issue is whether or not Bush is the “worst” President ever. IMO he is….. by far. He not only reacted very poorly to the events that happened during his days in office… He helped shape them by having bad policys or having un-prepared people in the positions that they affected.

    If you want to go down the “race” ave. then please answer me why most black “men of faith” still believe in Bush simply because of his stance on gay marriage.

  • I think ulysses s. grant was the most pimpin president on the face of this lowsy earth. He was not bad at all

  • All liberal presidents are losers. I think the wrong being are being labeled terrorists. Liberals trying to force their disgusting lifestyles on others for decades now. It’s intolerable, and I say let islam nuke San Fran, Boston, and New York. Do us all a favor, so we can get back to living in peace.

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