{"id":9559,"date":"2007-01-09T11:10:40","date_gmt":"2007-01-09T16:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9559.html"},"modified":"2007-01-09T11:10:40","modified_gmt":"2007-01-09T16:10:40","slug":"he-certainly-has-the-wind-in-his-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/he-certainly-has-the-wind-in-his-face\/","title":{"rendered":"‘He certainly has the wind in his face’"},"content":{"rendered":"

There seems to be some lingering confusion<\/a> at the White House about public opinion, so for Tony Snow’s benefit, let’s take a moment to consider the extent to which Bush has lost the public<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Bush will outline his “new way forward” in Iraq on Wednesday to a nation that overwhelmingly opposes sending more U.S. troops and is increasingly skeptical that the war can be won.<\/p>\n

A USA TODAY\/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday shows a daunting sales job ahead for the White House, which is considering a plan to deploy up to 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq.<\/p>\n

Those surveyed oppose the idea of increased troop levels by 61%-36%. Approval of the job Bush is doing in Iraq has sunk to 26%, a record low.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Heritage Foundation’s Michael Franc, while suggesting Bush might be able to turn things around, said, “He certainly has the wind in his face.” That’s an understatement.<\/p>\n

* Nearly half of those surveyed say the United States can’t achieve its goals in Iraq regardless of how many troops it sends.<\/p>\n

* Eight in 10 say the war has gone worse than the Bush administration expected.<\/p>\n

* More than half<\/a> the public wants to see U.S. troops withdraw sometime between now and the end of 2007.<\/p>\n

* Confidence in Bush is shot: 72% of Americans say Bush doesn’t have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq. (66% said the same of congressional Dems.)<\/p>\n

The new Democratic congressional majority, meanwhile, seems to be enjoying strong public support.
\n
\nIt’s not just because the electorate is pleased with a change in leadership; Americans actually want Dems to grab the steering wheel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A USA TODAY\/Gallup Poll taken Friday-Sunday shows that Americans by nearly 2-to-1 want congressional Democrats, not President Bush, to have more influence over the direction the nation takes during the next year.<\/p>\n

Democratic congressional leaders get their highest rating since Bush took office in 2001; 59% of those surveyed say their policies would move the country in the right direction. Republican congressional leaders get their lowest rating: 35% endorse their approach.<\/p>\n

“Looks like a honeymoon,” says Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego. “People can project all their hopes on to this new majority \u2026 but I wouldn’t expect that kind of favorable image to keep up forever.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One more thing: several leading conservative voices started arguing<\/a> over the weekend that Bush enjoys stronger national support than Nancy Pelosi. Like most of the arguments you’ll find on far-right blogs lately, this is easily debunked. According to Gallup, Bush has a 37% approval rating, 59% disapproval. In contrast, Pelosi enjoys<\/a> a 44% approval rating, 22% disapproval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There seems to be some lingering confusion at the White House about public opinion, so for Tony Snow’s benefit, let’s take a moment to consider the extent to which Bush has lost the public. President Bush will outline his “new way forward” in Iraq on Wednesday to a nation that overwhelmingly opposes sending more U.S. […]<\/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-9559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9559","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=9559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}