Bush’s New Problem: Polls Show He’s Losing His Likability

There have been lots of bad news stories dealing with polling regarding President George W. Bush but this has to be one of the worst ones yet, from Knight Ridder:

It’s not just the way he’s doing his job. Americans apparently don’t like President Bush personally much anymore, either.

A drop in his personal popularity, as measured by several public polls, has shadowed the decline in Bush’s job-approval ratings and weakened his political armor when he and his party need it most.

Losing that political protection – dubbed “Teflon” when Ronald Reagan had it – is costing Bush what the late political scientist Richard Neustadt called the “leeway” to survive hard times and maintain his grip on the nation’s agenda. Without it, Bush is a more tempting target for political enemies. And members of his party in Congress are less inclined to stand with him.

“When he loses likability, the president loses the benefit of the doubt,” said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa. “That makes it much harder for him to steer.”

But it isn’t just that. Much of American culture operates on likability. Key news personalities, television actors advance in their careers not just because they can do their jobs but because they have that “hook” that keeps the audience tuning in. There is even the (in)famous Q-rating that determines likability. A President can get great poll numbers and be unloved but not disliked (LBJ after JFK’s assassination) but once it sours the audience starts to tune out. MORE from KRN:

Aides in the president’s circle say Bush still has it. They suggest that his likability will serve as a get-out-of-trouble card no matter how mad people get about the war in Iraq or other woes.

“The American people like this president,” White House political guru Karl Rove said last week. “People like him. They respect him. He’s somebody they feel a connection with. But they’re just sour right now on the war. And that’s the way it’s going to be. And we will fight our way through.”

Rove said he based his confidence on a private poll done for the Republican National Committee that showed Bush’s personal approval rating higher than 60 percent, far above his job approval. “The polls I believe are the polls that get run through the RNC,” Rove said. “I look at the polls all the time.”

The Republican National Committee wouldn’t release a copy of the poll. Spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said she couldn’t explain why public polls show a decline in Bush’s personal popularity except to say that, “you can ask a poll question four different ways and get four different answers.”

But herein lies the problem: Rove & Co are saying they base their view on a private poll they won’t release. Why is that so at odds with polls that have been published?

Six public polls in recent weeks showed the opposite of Rove’s account – that Bush’s personal approval ratings have dropped since he was re-elected in 2004.

Click on the Knight-Ridder link at the top of this post and read them.

Does Rove need a new pollster? And, if not, do the other polling companies need Rove’s polling techs?

But there truly seems to be some “Bush fatigue” setting in — and perhaps a bit more than that.

There’s a point when a political figure may “jump the shark” so only his most fervent political supporters like seeing him on the screen. Phrases that once sounded so fresh can begin to sound tiresome. The personality tics that were pleasing become irritating (how many comedians are now focusing on the Bush laugh?). And, when they suffer credibility gaps, their words become increasingly doubted.

A political leader then finds it much harder to get the benefit of the doubt not only in times of crisis but in those vital times when there isn’t a massive, immediate crisis but it’s critical to lead by getting support to deal with a lingering problem.

There is a second “cushion” a leader can have to fall back on in hard political times: having created a governing (versus election-winning) coalition that is broad-based, consensus-based enough so that if parts of it fall away he still has some other diverse sections to help him through. In this case, Bush has played mostly to his base — and his base has been straying. He does not have the support from Democrats and independents because he has been so focused on pleasing his base. He only did part of his homework.

So Bush now faces a double whammy: holding onto his base PLUS getting back supporters who are wavering and getting his message across to an increasing number of Americans who don’t like him.

If a leader can’t effectively make his case and connect with his public in democracies it spells trouble in managerial and political terms.

That raises the issue: has “the American public likes this President” become another affirmation-like talking point that is repeated constantly to create a conventional wisdom? Future polls should provide the answer.

FINAL QUESTION: if the Rove poll was highly complimentary, wouldn’t it — in keeping with the way things go — be discreetly leaked out to some political reporter?