President George Bush’s polling numbers continue to resemble an elevator — heading down.
A new CBS News/New York Times poll echoes another recent one: GWB’s approval rating is going down and many polled don’t feel Bush shares their priorities:
(CBS) President George W. Bush’s job approval rating is now just 42 percent, and most Americans think he does not share their priorities.
There are two ways this can be argued: (1)This is a problem for Bush because he’s not in tune with the American people. (2)This is a minor problem that needs to be worked on because leadership means bringing around the public to your way of thinking. Can you guess which perception is likely to the dominant one in the White House?
And there’s more bad news (unless you use the perception system outlined above) for the President:
Iraq and the economy — not the President’s signature issue of Social Security — are most important to Americans, and Americans’ assessments of both remain mixed, with support for the decision to send troops to Iraq matching its lowest percent ever.
Regarding Social Security, months of campaigning have not brought public acceptance of the personal accounts the President desires, nor resulted in increased confidence in his ability to make the right decisions about that program. In fact, many Americans claim they like Bush’s plan less the more they hear about it.
This would again mean the options would be (1)increase the efforts to sell the present plan, (2)look for something that incorporates a bit of the present plan but compromises (3)look for an exit strategy that saves face because the focus on this is sucking up political air…which could mean some GOPers could suffocate when they run for re-election to Congress in 2006. AND:
President Bush’s job approval rating has dropped this month to just 42 percent, while 51 percent disapprove. His current approval rating is near the low reached in May 2004, after news and photos from the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal were made public.
If you recall, that scandal eventually blew over for various reasons…part of which was the merciless onslaught of the Presidential campaign. That caused the blatantly partisan “juices” to kick in on both sides. That also meant that Bush had John Kerry to run against. The problem this time: Bush is not up for re-election. Is this a free fall…or can he turn it around?
The poll also shows something highly significant:
Bush’s job approval dropped significantly since last month among people aged 30 to 44, from 52 percent to 40 percent now. Approval among those in middle-income households (incomes between $30,000 and $50,000) also dropped, from 46 percent in May to 40 percent now. Bush also lost ground among white Catholics.
However, the President retains the approval of some key constituent groups. More than 8 in ten Republicans approve of the job he is doing, unchanged in the past month, as do about 7 in ten white evangelical Christians. About two in three conservatives approve of him.
In other words: his partisans still love him. His erosion is coming from loss of support among other segments of the population. If you look at election results, he was not re-elected strictly due to Republican votes. He also peeled away some Democrats and a hefty chunk of the independent voters.
This suggests the efforts to shore up the base remain a double-edge sword: (1)Bush retains his core support but, (2)in doing so, he’s steadily alienating other voters who see him pursuing an agenda that is not theirs.
This could be an interesting second term since so far there is no White House mid-course correction in sight.
PS: As is the custom in modern-day America, some partisans will dismiss this poll as being wrong due to methodology, etc. If CBS does another poll showing Bush’s numbers go up, that poll will be trumpeted. Bottom line: it fits in with a trend which could explain some of the increasing independence of members of Congress.
UPDATE: The New York Times piece on this poll has the White House response which downplays the poll:
Nicole Devenish, a counselor to the president, dismissed the significance of the poll, saying Mr. Bush believes that following polls is equivalent to a dog chasing its tail. “We have advanced a broad agenda, and will continue to advocate the people’s priorities,” she said.
And the Times also notes one fact that doesn’t bode well for the President’s clout: the poll numbers for GOPers in Congress is nosediving:
The sharpest drop in Congressional approval in recent months occurred among Republicans. In February, 54 percent of Republicans said they approved of the way Congress was doing its job; in the most recent poll, that had dropped to 40 percent. Some analysts suggest that Congress is paying the price for months of intense partisan struggle over judicial nominations and the decision to intervene in the right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo, which was widely criticized as Congressional over-reaching.
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.