George Bush and the GOP: Poll Axed
I am fond of saying that a public-opinion poll is merely a snapshot in time, but even so this is a dark time indeed for President Bush and the Republican Party.
According to a new Newsweek Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low only matched by Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Pause for a moment to consider that in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Bush’s approval rating hovered around 95 percent and has fallen so far that he is now put in the same league as a perennial conservative Republican laughing stock.
This remarkably low rating is casting a dark shadow over Republican chances of keeping the White House in 2008, as the poll finds each of the leading Democratic contenders beating the GOP frontrunners in head-to-head matchups.
More here.
22 Responses to “George Bush and the GOP: Poll Axed”
No doubt that Bush is extremely unpopular and that the rest of the GOP is going to distance themselves from him. But as Ed Morrissey pointed out, that Newsweek poll sampled twice as many people who identified themselves as Democrats than Republican (and before anyone says, “well, there probably are now a lot more Dems since Republican voters are giving up their party membership, you should look at the data which shows that both parties are losing members in droves and the overall voting population is becoming more independent, not more Democratic). So, is it a surprise with a sampling error like that that the results would skew toward Democrat victories? After all, those numbers in the matchups differ from most other recent polls.
I would caution the dems to not be too quick to order their inauguration invitations. A good part of the 72% are conservatives/libertarians/other, such as myself, who dislike what bush is doing but feel the dems would be worse than whomever the GOP puts forth. And while bush’s ratings are in the toilet, and deservedly so, no republican is running in 2008 as bush’s successor in spirit; each gop nominee is taking pains to distance himself from bush, so I would expect there to be limited downrange exposure.
Polls are snapshots in time. All I keep seeing is, “Bush’s numbers are getting lower and lower.”
Other than that, it doesn’t seem to convince people that dead Americans are a bad thing, a skyrocketting debt is a bad thing, or that giving the world at large the bird is a bad thing, so, I’m still skeptical.
Except of course on the biggest issue in the race. And that issue will only be more important to voters in another 18 months (and 200 billion dollars or so).
These guys have till Oct. 2007 at most IMO to announce they’ve had a “change of heart”‘ on continuing the Iraq war indefinately. And how the electorate going to view that spectacle? 9 guys (Paul never supported the war) having a “change of heart” within a few weeks of each other?
You can’t help but laugh at such pure cynicism.
Either they will have to make the surge look like a huge success by September, and try to suppress dissent on the issue with the usual rhetoric about cutting and running and inviting defeat, or the 9 candidates will be doing a lot of tap-dancing. ( I’m still in awe that 1/3 of the candidates denied belief in Darwin’s theory of evolution during the debate. What next? Denial that the solar system revolves around the sun?)
Congress should appoint an independent bipartisan commission to judge whether the surge is truly leading to success or if it is just crushing the minority party to mask the inability of Maliki’s government to meet any of its benchmarks.
Even if the poll questioned twice as many Democrats as Republicans, it’s still consistent with the trends we’ve seen over the past few months.
Given these poll results, perhaps George ought to start calling himself “Georgie” and giving interviews to Playboy about “committing adultery in my heart.”
And some hostages in Iran…wait, the UK already did that.
Maybe the Republicans don’t want to break Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment, because even from a Republican outlook, the administration has not been successful overall. Party loyalty is everything to the GOP.
What a joke. Sure, McCain, Giuliani and Romney say they would have done things differently in Iraq, but they don’t say how. They refuse to admit the war is a mistake and they don’t offer any solutions.
If there is a difference between them, it’s purely rhetorical.
They can’t admit it now, Chris. GOP hardliners, who make up the bulk of their primary voters still support the war. If any of the candidates admitted it was a mistake, they would be in Kerry’s position in 2004 and labelled a flip-flopper.
kritter, that’s the problem with labelling dissent as defeatism, and equating an open mind with weakness.
The Democrats have their own problems, not the least of which is conveying a unified message to Jane and Joe Sixpack, and they certainly are capable of blowing it.
But underlying Bush’s sagging poll numbers, which I do not believe can get much lower without really starting to erode his base, is that he and his party’s “accomplishments” of the past six-plus years have been built on deceit and lies. There simply is very little that any Republican running for president can do to get out from under that crushing weight.
Even that charmingly refreshingly independently Fred Thompson, were he to survive the primaries, will be confronted with this conundrum. Methinks the 2008 election will be interesting in that the candidates from both parties will be running against the Bush “legacy.”
Shaun,
The key to the Democrats is that they know that they can win without appealing to Jane and Joe Sixpack. That is probably the least important group in the coalition of groups that make up the Democratic Party.
Superdestroyer:
If you define Jane and Joe as middle-class Main Street Americans, which I do, then I disagree.
All the GOP candidates have to do is show how Bush did some things he shouldn’t have done (shouldn’t have, to the conservative base, means that he wasn’t conservative enough in some policies), and that many of the things he did were executed poorly. If a candidate can define how he’d be different from Bush in those ways, he’ll gain support from the conservative voters to win the nomination. And if he does all that while also conveying a positive, hopeful attitude, and while not appearing to cater to the evangelical right wing, then he’ll have a chance at winning the election.
It’s certainly the Dem’s election to lose right now, but they’ve been known to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory before so it’s certainly too soon to assume that we’ll have undivided rule again (and BTW, since so many moderates said that the main reason for electing a Democratic majority to Congress was to bring back divided government, shouldn’t some of you be considering the consequences of one party rule from the Dems?)
Yes, but I’d like to see it divided between the Democrats and possible non-Republican third and fourth parties.
The Republican party deserves to be dismantled at the national level for the conduct of the President and Congress over the last 7 years.
Hell, if the DNC members here need a reason to pop the champagne cork, they really needn’t rely on a somewhat skewed poll. There has been only one same party three-peat since Coolidge and that was following the undeniably most popular President in the last 50 years.
Of course, they should ignore the fact that the Dem Congress is polling around 38% approval.
Speaking of Congress, anyone here think that Durbin ought to be censured for knowing that all the Iraq intelligence was indeed bogus before the vote, yet he wimped out and said nothing because the neocons told him these were “classified” lies?
Durbin should lose his seat, and Tenet, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush should be in jail.
CS- That strategy might work for those like Mike Huckabee or Giuliani, who weren’t in Congress for the last 6 years, but McCain, Hunter and Tancredo did nothing to influence the administration’s policies, even after they knew very well that they weren’t working.
As far as Congress goes, there is still some fallout from the Abramoff and Duke Cunningham scandals that may affect the GOP legislators that have been targeted or subject to an FBI search of their homes or offices, so I don’t think the GOP has much of a chance in Congress in ’08. Might pull the presidency out, though if enough people look at Hillary as damaged goods.
Kim: which is why Guiliani and Romney (and F Thompson if he runs) are both popular among the traditional conservative base.
As far as Congress, that’s the Dems to lose too and so far their polling numbers aren’t much better than Bush’s; it’s early days yet so we’ll see.
I agree that Romney, Giuliani and F. Thompson have the best chance with the general public, but they will have to break away from Bush’s policy if there’s still a lack of progress by the end of summer, or they will be tagged with it anyway. I honestly think Thompson has the best chance to win over the conservative base, but he’d better declare very soon, because he is behind the others organizationally and in fundraising. Also, he seems a little reluctant to hit the campaign trail.
Congress’s ratings are traditionally low- the 109th was even lower I think-people vote on individual candidates- rather than how they think Congress is performing as a whole. If the Republicans can blame the Democrats for getting nothing passed they might contain some of the damage. But I don’t think the Republicans will regain control.
I voted for Bush twice and am counted as one of those who have been polled three times in the last 3 years.
I will never vote for another Democrat as long as I live. Whoever the Republicans put forth will get my vote.
There are many, many like me who are dissatisfied with Bush but who will never vote for a Democrat.
Someone like Rudi or Fred Thompson just might pull enough of the independents out of the muck along with the Republican base to put another Republican in the White House.
Especially after 2 years of another Say everything……….Do nothing Democratic Congress.
Oh they will forget that the Republicans were a Say everything…….Do nothing congress too.
Its not what have you done, but What have you done lately that matters.
Um-Somebody-
I guess I’m failing to see how you define yourself as an independent if you are never going to vote for another Democrat in your lifetime. Doesn’t that just make you a dissatisfied Republican? We do have a two-party system, after all.
BTW, if all of those who were dissatisfied with Bush voted with the Democrats, they would receive 64% of the vote according to the Newsweek poll. Even the Democrats realize that’s unrealistic.
But the GOP’s woes are not confined to Bush- aren’t voters going to be looking at who has supported the policies they’re unhappy with all of this time? Also, a key reason for the GOP’s loss in ’06 was not Bush, it was their own failure to provide oversight, immersion in multiple scandals and failure to send fiscally sound budgets to the WH.