{"id":7466,"date":"2006-05-20T10:13:10","date_gmt":"2006-05-20T14:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7466"},"modified":"2006-05-20T10:13:10","modified_gmt":"2006-05-20T14:13:10","slug":"when-he-loses-likeability-the-president-loses-the-benefit-of-the-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-he-loses-likeability-the-president-loses-the-benefit-of-the-doubt\/","title":{"rendered":"‘When he loses likeability, the president loses the benefit of the doubt’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, [tag]Karl Rove[\/tag] insisted<\/a> that [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s [tag]likeability[\/tag], his [tag]personal[\/tag] [tag]approval ratings[\/tag], were in the 60s in some polls. He explained that the American people “like him, they respect him, he’s somebody they feel a connection with.”<\/p>\n

[tag]Knight Ridder[\/tag] — under a headline that reads, “Americans [tag]don’t like[\/tag] [tag]President[\/tag] Bush [tag]personally[\/tag] much anymore, either” — sets the record straight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s not just the way he’s doing his job. Americans apparently don’t like President Bush personally much anymore, either.<\/p>\n

A drop in his personal popularity, as measured by several public polls, has shadowed the decline in Bush’s job-approval ratings and weakened his political armor when he and his party need it most.<\/p>\n

Losing that political protection – dubbed “Teflon” when Ronald Reagan had it – is costing Bush what the late political scientist Richard Neustadt called the “leeway” to survive hard times and maintain his grip on the nation’s agenda. Without it, Bush is a more tempting target for political enemies. And members of his party in Congress are less inclined to stand with him.<\/p>\n

“When he loses likeability, the president loses the benefit of the doubt,” said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa. “That makes it much harder for him to steer.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That last point is particularly important. Reviewing Bush’s low national support is more than just a parlor game or a punch line; the numbers reflect the president’s ability to govern effectively. Or, in this case, not.
\n<\/p>\n

Reagan, for example, enjoyed a personal bond with Americans that helped him when the country went through a wrenching recession and when his administration was rocked by the Iran-Contra scandal.<\/p>\n

“It protected him,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political scientist at the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n

“Look at where Bush is today. You could argue that, even though his job approval rating was low, if he had a significantly higher personal approval rating, congressional Republicans would not have strayed as far from him.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some news outlets seem anxious<\/a> to write the “Bush comeback” story for some reason. Kudos to Knight Ridder for reporting the obvious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, [tag]Karl Rove[\/tag] insisted that [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s [tag]likeability[\/tag], his [tag]personal[\/tag] [tag]approval ratings[\/tag], were in the 60s in some polls. He explained that the American people “like him, they respect him, he’s somebody they feel a connection with.” [tag]Knight Ridder[\/tag] — under a headline that reads, “Americans [tag]don’t like[\/tag] [tag]President[\/tag] Bush [tag]personally[\/tag] much anymore, either” […]<\/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-7466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7466","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=7466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}