{"id":6845,"date":"2006-03-14T09:42:06","date_gmt":"2006-03-14T14:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6845"},"modified":"2006-03-14T09:42:06","modified_gmt":"2006-03-14T14:42:06","slug":"from-a-position-of-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/from-a-position-of-weakness\/","title":{"rendered":"From a position of weakness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes, another national poll was released. Yes, Bush is still extremely unpopular. But the latest CNN\/USA Today\/Gallup poll<\/a> released yesterday included one tidbit I hadn’t seen before. First, the overview.<\/p>\n

President Bush’s “approval rating” has sunk to a new low according to a USA TODAY\/CNN\/Gallup poll released Monday.<\/p>\n

The latest results show only 36% of those polled saying they “approve” of the way Bush is handling his job. Bush’s previous low was 37%, set last November.<\/p>\n

Sixty percent of those polled said they “disapprove” of Bush’s performance. That matches an all-time worst rating hit last November and again two weeks ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps most importantly, when asked whether they prefer Democratic or Republican congressional candidates, poll respondents gave Dems a stunning 16-point lead, 55% to 39%. It’s the biggest advantage for the party in a Gallup poll since 1992<\/b>, which, not incidentally, is the last cycle Dems won majorities in both chambers.<\/p>\n

Also interesting, however, was a poll question that I hadn’t seen before. CNN’s Bill Schneider mentioned it<\/a> on air yesterday.<\/p>\n

The uprising over the ports deal and the Hurricane Katrina videotapes have hurt President Bush in another way; 51 percent now call Mr. Bush a weak president.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Weak” is perhaps the one word Karl Rove fears most. The Bush gang can live with “unpopular.” They’re only mildly troubled by “incompetent.” But when a majority of the country believes the president is “weak,” it suggests Bush really has given up every advantage he’s enjoyed for over four years.
\n
\nWhat’s behind the deteriorating support? It’s not the ports controversy (though that certainly didn’t help); it’s Iraq<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Only 38 percent said they believe the nearly 3-year-old war was going well for the United States, down from 46 percent in January, while 60 percent said they believed the war was going poorly.<\/p>\n

Nearly half of those polled said they believe Democrats would do a better job of managing the war — even though only a quarter of them said the opposition party has a clear plan for resolving the situation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That last point is probably the most politically relevant. Only 32% of Americans say they believe Bush has a clear plan for handling the war. Even fewer believe Dems have a clear plan — but when asked who’d do a better job managing the issue, Dems enjoy a sizable lead over the GOP, 48% to 40%.<\/p>\n

It’s almost as if poll respondents were saying, “Dems may not have a plan, but given what we’ve seen, they’ve got to be better than the Republicans.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, another national poll was released. Yes, Bush is still extremely unpopular. But the latest CNN\/USA Today\/Gallup poll released yesterday included one tidbit I hadn’t seen before. First, the overview. President Bush’s “approval rating” has sunk to a new low according to a USA TODAY\/CNN\/Gallup poll released Monday. The latest results show only 36% of […]<\/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-6845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6845","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=6845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}