It’s getting to the point where seemingly every week President George W. Bush’s polling hits a new low — and it’s clear his problem with eroding numbers is no longer just from independent voters but from his own party. The latest from CBS:
With gas prices sky-high and no end of the Iraq war in sight, President George W. Bush’s approval rating hits an all-time low in a new CBS News poll.
Only 33 percent approve of his job performance, Mr. Bush’s lowest approval rating yet in CBS News polls. A majority – 58 percent of those polled – say they disapprove of the president. Mr. Bush appears to be losing support from his own party. His approval rating among Republicans has dropped to 68 percent.
Mr. Bush’s ratings are even lower on the issues dominating news coverage: near-record gas prices and the war in Iraq.
The poll found that 74 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the gas crisis. Even more think that the administration has not developed a good plan to get gas prices under control.
The poll also gives Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld his own lowest poll rating yet — and indicates voters think Democrats would be better at keeping gas prices down than Republicans. Not.
One footnote here. If you click on the option to read the full results (it’s in Adobe Acrobat Reader so be forewarned) it’s clear that the polling was done AFTER the recent White House reshuffle that ended in Karl Rove being refocused on helping the GOP keep the Congress and Fox News‘ Tony Snow replacing Scott McClellan as White House press spokesman. That doesn’t portend well for the White House.
Yet another measure (one we look at each day on this site) can be found HERE in the Rasmussen Reports daily poll. It shows you how GWB’s numbers have fluctuated but how he’s stuck with a limited amount of voter support, down 11 percent from the start of his second term. The question: what can Bush do to regain voter support? Those analysts who predict military action on Iran would rally the voters could be wrong here: dissatisfaction seems too profound at this point.
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.