CBS\/New York Times poll<\/a> shows Bush’s approval rating slipping to 50%, the second lowest level of support his presidency. The same poll showed 45% saying they “disapprove” of Bush’s job performance, which is the highest its ever been for Bush. This is a pretty significant drop — the week before Christmas, Bush enjoyed a 60%-33% approval to disapproval numbers in another CBS\/NYT poll.<\/p>\nThis poll showed other encouraging numbers for those of us who can’t wait to vote against Bush in November:<\/p>\n
* Less than half now approve of how he is handling the situation in Iraq. 51% say the war was not worth the costs.<\/p>\n
* Two of the President’s just-launched initiatives have met with negative public assessment. Most Americans oppose temporary work permits for illegal immigrants and don\u2019t think a permanent space station on the moon is worth it. <\/p>\n
* Just 41% say the President has the same priorities on the issues they do.<\/p>\n
* Only 30% say he is more interested in protecting the interests of ordinary Americans than in protecting the interests of large corporations. Just 39% — fewer than before — have confidence in his ability to make the right economic decisions.<\/p>\n
* Overall, most Americans say things in the country are worse now than they were five years ago. 57% say things are worse now, while 21% say they’re better.<\/p>\n
My favorite data was on the general election match-up. When poll respondents were asked to choose between a generic Democratic nominee and Bush, 43% backed the incumbent, while 45% support the Dem.
\n
\nSure, that’s very close, but it’s a positive development. The CBS\/NYT poll from mid-December showed Bush ahead in the same question, 49% to 40%. More importantly, the conventional wisdom seems to be that Bush’s second term is almost assumed. The perception is that he’s a popular war-time leader with strong national support, while the Democrats lack a clear frontrunner who can beat him. This poll, among others, shows the conventional wisdom isn’t where the public is.<\/p>\n
Let’s all say it together: Bush is vulnerable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bush’s poll numbers may have enjoyed a little bump after Saddam Hussein was captured, but I think it’s safe to say that bump is gone. A new CBS\/New York Times poll shows Bush’s approval rating slipping to 50%, the second lowest level of support his presidency. The same poll showed 45% saying they “disapprove” of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}