{"id":6742,"date":"2006-03-01T15:00:45","date_gmt":"2006-03-01T20:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6742"},"modified":"2006-03-01T15:00:45","modified_gmt":"2006-03-01T20:00:45","slug":"this-time-its-personal-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/this-time-its-personal-3\/","title":{"rendered":"This time, it’s personal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Matthews was on the Today show<\/a> this morning and, citing the recent CBS poll<\/a>, made an interesting — and for Matthews, surprisingly astute — observation about the national mood. (via Kleiman<\/a>)<\/p>\n

“The people don’t like the President even more than they don’t like his policies.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s true. Looking at the most recent numbers<\/a>, the electorate has no use for the president’s agenda of handling of today’s major issues. His approval rating is 34%; just 30% approve of how Bush is handling the war in Iraq; half of Americans say they disapprove of how Bush is handling the war on terror; 32% approve of the way Bush is responding to Katrina, and the same percentage said they approve of Bush’s handling of the economy.<\/p>\n

Embarrassingly poor support, to be sure. But the number Matthews cited may be the most important of all: Only 29% of Americans say they have a positive view of Bush, the worst of his presidency.<\/p>\n

In both of his presidential campaigns, Bush would subtly remind audiences that, no matter the issue, he was the guy they liked. The one they wanted to have a (non-alcoholic) beer with. They one they’d invite to their barbecue instead of those experienced, capable, and qualified eggheads Al Gore and John Kerry.<\/p>\n

But those barbecue invitations just got pulled. For the first time since Bush took office, slightly more people approve of his job performance than like him personally.<\/p>\n

Matthews added that this “is a staggering blow because we all know that he’s had two things going for him since he’s been president: the war on terror, where’s he gotten good numbers, and now they’re negative, and likability — they’re both gone now.”<\/p>\n

Yes, they are. And if “Bush fatigue” has set in, and the public just doesn’t like the guy anymore, the White House may find it almost impossible to turn things around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Matthews was on the Today show this morning and, citing the recent CBS poll, made an interesting — and for Matthews, surprisingly astute — observation about the national mood. (via Kleiman) “The people don’t like the President even more than they don’t like his policies.” That’s true. Looking at the most recent numbers, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}