Bush Approval Rating Hits All Time Low In Wall Street Journal Poll
It now appears as if President George Bush’s southward-heading approval rating is still on-the move, according to the latest Wall Street Journal poll — but the poll doesn’t contain happy news for some of his opponents, either:
President Bush’s approval rating slipped to new lows in the most recent Harris Interactive survey, but he’s not alone: For the first time since the series began, all of the political figures and institutions included in the survey have negative performance ratings.
Of the 1,001 American adults polled online April 20-23, only 28% had a positive view of Mr. Bush’s job performance, down from 32% in February and from a high of 88% in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The current rating is his weakest showing since his inauguration.
Not good news for Bush. But the poll shows that some others are facing slippage as well:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice garnered the approval of 45% of those surveyed, down from 46% in February, and approval of Defense Secretary Robert Gates slid to 29% in the latest poll, from 32% in February.
Among other individuals included in the poll, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) saw her approval rating fall to 30% in April from 38% in February, shortly after her swearing-in as the first female House speaker. Approval for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) slipped to 22%, from 23% in February but up from 19% a year ago.
This will likely be a key point from Bush’s supporters on radio and cable talk shows. But a President is generally expected to have more than 28 percent approval rating since he needs clout to enact programs and aggregate interest to build support for policies. Generally. But GWB seems to be marching to a far different political drummer, where coalitions and support beyond his own party’s political base are not on the front burner.
Congress should not jump for joy, either:
Those polled gave Congress an approval rating of 27%, with the Democrats as a group pulling in 35% approval, compared with 22% for Republicans.
OVERALL:
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17 Responses to “Bush Approval Rating Hits All Time Low In Wall Street Journal Poll”
I think the best place to get the clearest picture is at pollster.com. According to that both Congress and Bush are currently rising (and the WSJ poll is definitely an outlier at this point….but who knows it could portend things to come).
Its a skewed poll. It is intended to sell out Bush in the hopes that people will believe that the new Democrat congress is not popular. The new congress is popular. Furthermore, the more this congress does to apply pressure on Bush to end the war in Iraq, the more popular it becomes.
The Wall Street Journal? Really, like they are not republican biased. What a joke.
I would love to see a superimposed time line graph of the value of the Dow, the price of unleaded petrol, and the approval rating of the President.
Proof positive that both the Dems and Repubs are screwing up royally as usual…
But y’all bammas can argue “It’s the Dems’ fault” and “It’s the Repubs’ fault” all y’all want…have fun running around in circles in y’alls finger pointing contest.
mikkel Says:
April 26th, 2007 at 7:19 am
I think the best place to get the clearest picture is at pollster.com.
And I would argue the “best place” is any newstand on November 5, 2008.
In the interim, the preoccupation with “approving/disapproving” of Bush, specifically, likely clouds the items that will actually be subject to voter decision.
Polls are merely snapshots in time. One reads too much into them at their own peril.
I give Bush a lot of credit. He has been steadfast and resolute. This whole thing is painful to watch. Let’s be clear – Americans don’t have a very good record in terms of results when actually getting what they have asked for. Remember health care? Most Americans resented the system as it was and wanted change. Now all I hear from people is how much better it was before. As for Iraq, when gasoline prices end up at 7 or 8 bucks a gallon after a Middle East meltdown after a troop pull-out, Americans will blame everyone but themselves. The problem in this country is that many Americans are not only short-sighted, but have short memories as well.
Although, Brian…most Americans don’t realize that four of our top oil importers are:
Canada
Mexico
Venezuela
Nigeria
…and they tend to get mad when you bring that up.
OVERALL: Bush bad, Bush bad, Bush bad. Gee, who’d have guessed what Joe would have concluded.
Polling data:
http://www.pollingreport.com/
Iraq
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=323
Dims
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=315
US public wants deadline
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=313
Trends in values and attitudes past 20 years
Political landscape more favorable to Dimmies
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=312
It would have been better if Bush had worked harder to get us off ME oil- invested much more in alternative fuels, raised the CAFE standards , pushed the hybrids and conservation. Our presence in the ME endangers us and the next generation.
“I would love to see a superimposed time line graph of the value of the Dow, the price of unleaded petrol, and the approval rating of the President. ”
I’d like a derivative of that graph.
K. Ritter said:
> if Bush had worked harder
> to get us off ME oil-
Bush — oil interests above all else (including Israel in the Middle East)???
> invested much more in
*** SPENT MUCH MORE ON ***
> alternative fuels,
Research would still take us years, decades, to yield results.
There is no instant, magic solution with alternative fuels, any more than embryonic stem cell research is going to cure every known illness tomorrow if only we “invested in” [sic; spent more on] this research. (Hell, Amgen would take the results and develop drugs based on them and patent them, selling them for the equivalent of $500,000-1M per patient per year.)
> raised the CAFE standards ,
> pushed the hybrids and
> conservation.
Conservation will not solve the problem any more than it will for electricity use and necessary future production. (Due to air pollution and cost issues, so much new power production is gas-fired. If anything, our gas usage will grow greatly in the years to come, including much new liquefied natural gas transport.)
Hybrids are not yet perfect substitutes for conventional automobiles.
CAFE standards — raised to what level, something still realistic instead of ridiculous? Will the public buy what results, if anything can result? The automakers cannot instantly comply with any desired increase in the standards. And why would Bush, with oil interest ties, raise CAFE standards?
It was said:
> most Americans don’t realize that
> four of our top oil importers are:
>
> Canada
> Mexico
> Venezuela
> Nigeria
>
> …and they tend to get mad when
> you bring that up
Thousand barrels per day
Crude oil, year-to-date 2007
CANADA 1,847
MEXICO 1,398
SAUDI ARABIA 1,382
VENEZUELA 1,031
NIGERIA 1,085
ANGOLA 504
ALGERIA 474
IRAQ 433
Total petroleum, year-to-date 2007
[The number for Venezuela may be wrong]
CANADA 2,430
MEXICO 1,538
VENEZUELA 1,270
SAUDI ARABIA 1,394
NIGERIA 1,120
ALGERIA 672
ANGOLA 522
IRAQ 433
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
Top world oil net exporters, 2005
1) Saudi Arabia 9.1
Venezuela 2.2
2) Russia 6.7
3) Norway 2.7
4) Iran 2.6
5) United Arab Emirates 2.4
6) Nigeria 2.3
7) Kuwait 2.3
9) Algeria 1.8
10) Mexico 1.7
11) Libya 1.5
12) Iraq 1.3
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.html
WOW WE ARE SO AWASH IN MIDDLE EAST OIL
Ha, I just had to laugh at the way the number eight followed by the close parentheses in the list above turned into a smilie emoticon wearing shades
Chavez is getting the last laugh with all the money we spend here in the USA at Citgo. (8)
DLS- Yes, I know its too ridiculous to expect an oilman to get us off of ME oil- especially with the Bush family connections to the Saudi royals! Also we got two for the price of one, when we got Cheney. Didn’t they think Americans would have easy access to cheap Iraqi oil once the country became a democracy? If you don’t think about how different their society is from ours, I guess it makes sense. But it didn’t work out very well for the British who occupied in the 20′s, then had to reinvade to keep Iraq from going fascist. Saddam was actually a fascist- baathism was modelled after Naziism. Uh oh – comment nanny will get me for using the N word