Newsweek Poll: Bush Most Unpopular President In Generation, Hurts GOPers (UPDATED)
Newsweek has a new poll and the magazine’s writer Marcus Mabry concludes that (1) Bush is the most unpopular President in a generation and (2) he is proving to be political poison to Republican 2008 Presidential candidate wannabes:
It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But according to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.’s nadir. The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979. This remarkably low rating seems to be casting a dark shadow over the GOP’s chances for victory in ’08. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds each of the leading Democratic contenders beating the Republican frontrunners in head-to-head match ups.
This poll is bad news for Republicans (GWB is now a political albatross but can’t be shed since their loyalties and fates are tied to his), guardedly good news for Democrats (being the anti-Bush won’t be enough and there are already news stories about the Democrats’ agenda stalling in Congress) and decidedly awful news for Jeb Bush (whenever he decides to run, he’ll run on a damaged brand name — but he can’t change his name).
But it gets worse for Bush — and his party — in the long run:
When the NEWSWEEK Poll asked more than 1,000 adults on Wednesday and Thursday night (before and during the GOP debate) which president showed the greatest political courage—meaning being brave enough to make the right decisions for the country, even if it jeopardized his popularity —more respondents volunteered Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton (18 percent each) than any other president. Fourteen percent of adults named John F. Kennedy and 10 percent said Abraham Lincoln. Only four percent mentioned George W. Bush. (Then again, only five percent volunteered Franklin Roosevelt and only three percent said George Washington.)
A majority of Americans believe Bush is not politically courageous: 55 percent vs. 40 percent. And nearly two out of three Americans (62 percent) believe his recent actions in Iraq show he is “stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes,†compared to 30 percent who say Bush’s actions demonstrate that he is “willing to take political risks to do what’s right.â€
This means the suggestions Bush and other Republican partisans make to Bush being another Harry Truman, a man sticking by his principles, willing to risk personal popularity, are not being accepted by many Americans. Rather, they see someone who is “stubborn” and won’t “admit mistakes” — another way of saying someone who lets personal ego get into the way of stand-back policy consideration, formulation and implementation…troubling in someone who must deal in policies which involve lives.
RELATED READING: William F. Buckley.
UPDATE: Again showing how polls can widely vary, Rusmussen Reports doesn’t find the figures as low — but does find that GWB is hurting his party. But Democrats should not be joyous: apparently the Democrats’ performance in Congress has led to some Democratic defections as well:
Forty percent (40%) of American adults Approve of the way that George W. Bush is performing his duties as President. Fifty-eight percent (58%) Disapprove of his performance. These figures include 17% who Strongly Approve and 43% who Strongly Disapprove (see comments on comparing Approval Ratings from different polling firms). The President earns approval from 78% of Republicans but only 13% of Democrats. Among those unaffiliated with the two major parties, 34% approve.In addition to low Job Approval ratings, the President’s performance is leading to a significant decline in the number of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans. While the number of Republicans nationwide sank to a new low in April, the number of Democrats has also declined a bit since their party took control of Congress. As a result, there are more unaffiliated voters today than Republicans.
22 Responses to “Newsweek Poll: Bush Most Unpopular President In Generation, Hurts GOPers (UPDATED)”
One other reasons that Bush has basically destroyed the entire Republican party is that he has destroyed any credibility they would have on issues that should be good for Republicans.
No Republican can run on being a fiscal conservative because Bush as anything but a fiscal conservative. Republicans cannot run on small government because Bush lost all credbility on that. Republicans cannot run on securing borders and anit-illegal immigraiton because Bush was run on an open borders program. Republicans cannot run on good government because Bush as been such a lousy manager.
If Bush has basically run on one ideal and that is to prevent another attack on the U.S. I assume that many apologist will claim that Bush as successful is there is not another attack before January 2009.
28 percent! It would seem that George W. Bush has hit rock bottom.. leaving only the radical ‘head-in-the-sand’ Bush fanatics in his corner.
As one who was a ’28 percenter’ at the start of this obscenely failed administration I am truely proud of my fellow Americans.
If they pick and choose from Bush’s strengths among Republicans, they might do alright- his successes are the tax cuts, Conservative Supreme Court nominations and the fact that the country has not been attacked since 9/11. Its not an impressively long list, especially when viewed in the light of more spectacular policy failures and recent scandals. But its all they’ve got. Not a single candidate mentioned Bush’s name in the debate,LOL!
Steve K- proud of the 28% or the 72%? Even Carter didn’t leave office having destabilized the Middle East!
Most of all, it’s good news for the American public, showing they’re waking up.
carpeicthus,
In the long run it will hurt America because it will make the U.S. a single party state. Do you really want to the entire U.S. to function like the current District of Columbia where 90% of the people automatically vote Democratic becasue there is no functional Republican party?
I should have mentioned that the GOP is extremely lucky that the VP is not running for the presidency in ’08. That is the biggest thing they have going for them, since Cheney is at 9%, and couldn’t possibly ditch the albatross of the Bush policies or reach back to the Reagan legacy for added support!
To clarify… When Bush started his War started only 28 percent of us thought the war and Bush’s approach were insanely wrong… now most thinking Americans agree.
The remaining 28 percent still supporting George W. Bush are people I will never understand.
Oooops… When Bush started his War started only 28 percent of us thought the war and Bush’s approach were insanely wrong… now most thinking Americans agree.
I appologize for the multi post. Strikethrough doesn’t work. I meant to say:
Oooops… When Bush started his War only 28 percent of us thought the war and Bush’s approach were insanely wrong… now most thinking Americans agree.
I’ll be back after I have more coffee and mow the lawn.
In the long run it will hurt America because it will make the U.S. a single party state
Let’s not get carried away. It was only a few short years ago that supposedly the Democrats were the permanent minority party, and Nixon was also supposed to be the end of the Republican Party.
There is always a tendency to straight-line project current trends into the future, as if new and unforeseeable events are never going to happen. But they always do.
Politics ebbs and flows, and this is just another of those. IMHO.
SD- the South voted solidly Democratic for many years after Reconstruction-= the Republican parties in those states were nonexistent. Now, most of the South rarely elects Democrats. The differences are usually aired out in primaries.
BTW, next time don’t use the District- instead use Wyoming or Utah, LOL where they never elect Democrats!
Also, if you are worried about a one-party state, you should try to purge some of the conservative theocrats in your party and work to elect more mainstream candidates. That would lure a wider group of voters who may not like the Democrats’ platform.There are plenty of independents and fiscal conservatives who have been driven from the party by its narrow ideology.
The Democrats will screw it up eventually. Keeping an eye on the government means always having one group of people abusing their power more than you’d appreciate.
So long as checks and balances keep the current abusers in somewhat of a check and dole out appropriate punishments, you’re getting the best you can hope for.
It isn’t a perfect system, and Republicans aren’t down for the count, but they’re suffering as they should for the mistakes they made. Eventually the tables will turn, but probably not this year.
I’m about to leave on another 500 mile drive and will be off line but again remember that polls are snapshots and usually resemble a see saw. The questions are a)if this is part of a trend b)will it keep trending like this? If the movement continues downward than you can look for Republicans to try and find ways to increasingly distance themselves from the administratior or even to show independence on some key issues…or possibly investigations.
Joe I don’t think his approval will get much lower. He’s pretty much at rock bottom now.
But it’s already low enough for Republicans to see that distancing themselves from him is a pretty good idea.
“But it’s already low enough for Republicans to see that distancing themselves from him is a pretty good idea.”
The problem is that even if they start voting to bring the troops home now, the rest of their voting record will be brought up again and again in the general. I think Democrats are going to use the same strategy as last time- which was to publicize the percentage that the candidate voted with Bush.
Changing their vote now might actually hurt them among the party activists who usually vote in the primaries.
C’mon Joe, how’s about that huge downward arrow you used to run! I loved that thing.
kritter,
With the gains that the Democrats are going to make in 2008 and 2010 along with the changing demographics, the Democrats will be unbeatable. There are at least 30 congressional districts where the Democrats can redistrict the Republicans out of a seats. Remember, any District that is currently 40% minority (other than Cuban-American dominated district in Florida) is an automaitc win for Democrats. The number of those kinds of district will grow.
The Republicans best hope was for President Bush to increase their percentage of midlde class and upper middle class whites. Yet his bad management, his budget busting spending, and his appeals to social conservatives while ignoring economic conservatives has alienated those groups.
The long term prospects for politics in the U.S. is that is will be blacks and Hispnaics voting for Jews. See California NY, or Maryland for good examples.
If you look at Repulblicans dominated states at least there is still a viable middle class that works in the private sector. That is much more than can be said for DC.
SD- It probably depends on how the war is going. If it goes well, the GOP can act like they knew better than the Democrats who had given up. If it goes badly, they’ll have to revert to scaring everyone into thinking their taxes are going up and that another terrorist attack will be brought about by Democratic rule- which may not work too well.
But at least 3 Congressmen may have to resign which also helps the Democrats. A GOP Senator is having ethics problems that could help Democrats. My prediction is that the Democrats will retain their hold in Congress and expand their margin in both houses. But, that is not necessarily a disaster since, they ran it for 40 years without total calamity.
They will have a harder time with the presidency- the country may still be stuck on voting for Christian white males.
I think anytime you have a large urban area with high crime and drugs, the middle class will leave. They did a lot of urban renewal under Tony Williams and attracted a lot of them to come back. Housing values went through the roof. So, I think your premise is off-that Democrats can’t govern. We’ve seen that one-party rule under Republicans was a disaster- from 2001-06- we had a failed executive and a Congress that was asleep, and rife with corruption. They rubberstamped everything that Bush wanted- to a higher degree than the Democrats have done when they have been in charge of everything. Jimmy Carter’s biggest enemy was Ted Kennedy. LBJ also had plenty of opposition from his own party on the war, and on civil rights legislation. Many of Clinton’s early measures didn’t pass- before 1994-he got more done with the GOP in charge.
I one day hope America will be a multi-party state, but I don’t think we should lament the destruction of the Republican party of it comes to pass. It has been devoid of any redeeming qualities in the last 7 years.
[...] You may not agree with him, but at least you know where he stands. Bush praises himself with such talk. The people can’t stand it. At 28% in the latest poll, Bush might want to sit down and listen. Republicans across the country are screwed. [...]
The idea of the country swinging to a Democrat-dominated government, that “one party” notion raised above, is what is most distressing. Americans have for the most part lost faith in the US government, and it is a bi-partisan thing and deservedly so. But the voting will probably just show a knee jerk reaction against the GOP. Can’t blame us/them, really. (“They may be idiots, but at least their OUR idiots). If we had come through a loss of faith in Republicans because of Iraq alone, we’d be headed toward a divided government where moderates could hope for some degree of dialogue and compromise between the extremes.
Getting old, so I can only hope the system recalibrates in my lifetime; but, I guess (sadly) my best hope is that the Democrats only screw things up moderately, so that in the next round of elections, or the next one after that, we see some balance. Or — a viable 3rd party that runs on “governance principles”, supported by Common Cause et al, rather than a political agenda. But, 2008 would be the ideal time for that, I think, and it ain’t happening except the extent that Unity08 is a viable entity.