A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. finds that 68 percent of those polled consider the President George Bush’s presidency a failure and that many don’t accept the argument used by Bush supporters and talk show hosts that circumstances were largely to blame:
As George W. Bush spends his final days in office, a national poll suggests that two-thirds of Americans see his presidency as a failure.
Sixty-eight percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Sunday said that Bush’s eight years in the White House were a failure, with 44 percent saying this was because of his personal shortcomings and 22 percent blaming the failure on circumstances beyond his control.
Thirty-one percent said they consider Bush’s presidency a success.
And it appears that some Americans have a bit of “buyer’s remorse:” Bush has burnished the image of former Vice President Al Gore:
Half of those polled say the United States could be better off today if Al Gore had been elected president in 2000 rather than Bush, with 27 percent saying the country would be worse off if Gore had won. Twenty-two percent say things would be about the same.
“Due to the Florida recount, Bush had the misfortune of coming into office under controversial circumstances,” CNN polling director Keating Holland said. “A lot of Americans apparently remember those circumstances and now wish things had gone a little differently.”
This week some conservative radio pundits were saying that Bush has been misunderstood and will be viewed by history as another Harry Truman, a blunt-spoken President who made tough decisions and suffered from it politically but was vindicated in later years. But if historians feel at all like those polled, this seems unlikely:
Only 3 percent of those questioned say Bush was one of the greatest presidents in the nation’s history. Forty-six percent rate him a poor president.
“That’s three times higher than the number who gave a failing grade to his father or Ronald Reagan when they left office, and it’s 27 points higher than Bill Clinton in 2001,” Holland said.
But there is some good news for Bush: his job approval rating has gone up to 31 percent:
“The good news for Bush: That 31 percent figure is 7 points higher than it was in November, a typical ‘nostalgia bump’ that most outgoing presidents get,” Holland added. “The bad news is that except for the rating Richard Nixon has when he resigned, that’s the lowest approval
rating an outgoing president has received in the six decades of scientific public opinion polling.”
In the long term, this suggested several things.
It suggests that GOPers will distance themselves even more from Bush once he is physically out of office. Republicans now in office and who run for office will take pains to show that their brand of Republicanism isn’t the same as Bush’s. Republicans will probably talk more about Ronald Reagan than Bush. And Democrats will either bring up Bush’s name or use him in campaign ads in at least one and perhaps two more election cycles.
CLICK HERE for a chart of Bush’s job approval ratings over the past few years.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.