{"id":2250,"date":"2004-08-03T11:29:51","date_gmt":"2004-08-03T16:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2250.html"},"modified":"2004-08-03T11:29:51","modified_gmt":"2004-08-03T16:29:51","slug":"forget-the-horse-race-lets-look-at-approval-ratings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/forget-the-horse-race-lets-look-at-approval-ratings\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget the horse race; let&#8217;s look at approval ratings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of polls, I thought I&#8217;d take the luxury of updating an item <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tnr.com\/blog\/campaignjournal?pid=1626\">Ryan Lizza wrote<\/a> for The New Republic in May. (Sorry, Ryan, if I&#8217;m stealing one of your ideas)<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s plenty of attention, with some justification, focused on the Kerry vs. Bush poll numbers. But let&#8217;s not forget a different number, which got more attention before the Dem primaries: presidential approval ratings.<\/p>\n<p>In March, Bush pollster\/advisor\/guru Matthew Dowd offered us this gem:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Normally, presidents finish roughly the same as their job approval numbers.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I happen to largely agree. In fact, with this quote in mind, I thought I&#8217;d take a look at how Dowd&#8217;s boss is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pollingreport.com\/BushJob.htm\">doing right now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bush job approval:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A34914-2004Aug2.html\">Washington Post\/ABC News<\/a> (July 30-Aug. 1): 47% (tied for the lowest of his presidency)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2004\/ALLPOLITICS\/08\/01\/polls.bounce\/index.html\">CNN\/USA Today\/Gallup<\/a> (July 30-31): 47% (tied for the second lowest of his presidency)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/5568072\/site\/newsweek\/\">Newsweek<\/a> (July 29-30): 45% (the second lowest of his presidency)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/stories\/2004\/08\/02\/opinion\/polls\/main633546.shtml\">CBS News<\/a> (July 30-Aug. 1): 44% (the second lowest of his presidency)<\/p>\n<p>If Bush finishes Election Day with these job approval numbers, according to his own pollster, he&#8217;ll lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of polls, I thought I&#8217;d take the luxury of updating an item Ryan Lizza wrote for The New Republic in May. (Sorry, Ryan, if I&#8217;m stealing one of your ideas) There&#8217;s plenty of attention, with some justification, focused on the Kerry vs. Bush poll numbers. But let&#8217;s not forget a different number, which got [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250","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=2250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}