Before we even tell you latest Newsweek poll numbers, remember that polls are like see saws — although President George Bush has gotten more “saw” than “see” recently. And the trend south continues: according to Newsweek, Bush’s poll numbers have dropped to below 40 percent — into the political danger zone.
Newsweek writes that its poll “suggests the post-Katrina political storm may just be rising. And her ultimate casualty could be President George W. Bush.” Some details:
In Katrina’s wake, the president’s popularity and job-approval ratings have dropped across the board. Only 38 percent of Americans approve of the way Bush is doing his job overall, a record-low for this president in the NEWSWEEK poll. (Fifty-five percent of Americans disapprove of his overall job performance.)
That’s a bad enough sign for GWB but then there’s this:
And only 28 percent of Americans say they are “satisfied with the way things are going� in the country, down from 36 percent in August and 46 percent in December, after the president’s re-election. This is another record low and two points below the satisfaction level recorded immediately after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal came to light. Fully two-thirds of Americans are not satisfied with the direction of the country.
But Katrina’s most costly impact could be a loss of faith in government generally, and the president, in particular. A majority of Americans (57 percent) say “government’s slow response to what happened in New Orleans� has made them lose confidence in government’s ability to deal with another major natural disaster. Forty-seven percent say it has made them lose confidence in the government’s ability to prevent another terrorist attack like 9/11, but 50 percent say is has not. (Note: our question asked about “government� in general, so we cannot say whether respondents meant state, local, federal or a combo of any of the three.)
And it gets even worse in general:
More critical to President Bush—and the GOP’s future as the nation’s majority party: most Americans, 52 percent, say they do not trust the president “to make the right decisions during a domestic crisis� (45 percent do). The numbers are exactly the same when the subject is trust of the president to make the right decisions during an international crisis.
AND:
Forty percent of Americans say the federal government’s response to the crisis in New Orleans was poor. Thirty-two percent say it was fair; 21 percent say it was good and five percent believe it was excellent. Americans don’t think much of the local and state governments’ responses either: 35 percent say state and local officials did a poor job and 34 percent say they did a fair job; 20 percent say they did a good job and five percent say an excellent job after the storm hit.
The Katrina effect is evident in how Americans rate the president personally. In every category, the view of the president is at all-time lows for the NEWSWEEK poll. Only 49 percent of Americans now believe the president has strong leadership qualities. The same percentage of registered voters feel that way, 49 percent—down from 63 percent the week before Bush’s reelection. Only 42 percent of Americans believe the president cares about people like them; 44 percent of registered voters feel that way—down from 50 percent the week before the election. And only 49 percent of Americans and the same percentage of registered voters believe Bush is intelligent and well-informed—down from 59 percent before the election.
ETC.
There’s more but increasingly analyses by experts and polls underline one fact: Bush is holding onto his staunch base, but he has clearly lost any large number of wavering Democrats and Independent voters are deserting him in droves.
The larger questions then become (a)whether a President can govern from relying on a base that is loyal no matter what happens or surfaces (b)whether he needs to work to expand his base of support in his remaining years (c)how he can do that and (d)how he can do that without losing that base — which has so far indicated there’s little he can do to lose them.
If you use that line of thinking you have to conclude that on the next Supreme Court nomination GWB may not feel he has to or can afford to nominate the kind of strict “red meat” social conservative that many in his base are demanding he name. He may be wiser picking someone who is a tad less divisive.
Someone, for instance, like Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
But the key question then becomes: yes,it’s logical… but will Karl Rove use this line of reasoning?
UPDATE: And polls, are conflicting, too. For instance, read the above, then read this Rasumussen Poll:
Saturday September 10, 2005–Forty-eight percent (48%) of American adults now approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President.
Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove.
Eighty-four percent (84%) of Republicans now give the President their Approval. That positive assessment is shared by 20% of Democrats and 38% of those not affiliated with either major party.
See? So now you get to choose whatever poll makes you party look good and the other bad (that’s the true value of polls..). The bottom line, though is that the general trend for the president is south.
UPDATE II: Bush is now also down below 40 percent in an AP-Ipsos poll:
Nearly four years after Bush’s job approval soared into the 80s after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush was at 39 percent job approval in an AP-Ipsos poll taken this week. That’s the lowest since the the poll was started in December 2003.
The public’s view of the nation’s direction has grown increasingly negative as well, with nearly two-thirds now saying the country is heading down the wrong track.
James Joyner predicts a rebound:
Bush’s numbers will rebound considerably in the coming weeks, although it remains to be seen whether he’ll ever become truly popular again. He’s got a lot of work ahead to undo the perception that his team has been inept at handling the Katrina crisis, which naturally and properly leads people to question how well they’d handle a terrorist attack.
Still, Katrina will be out of the news everywhere but the Gulf Coast region soon. Ultimately, tens of billions of dollars in reconstruction money will be spent and the economy will recover. Gas prices will moderate and the public will get accustomed to permanently higher ones, which was becoming a reality even before Katrina damaged our refinery capacity.
Absent some breaking event, the president’s next big chance to impact public opinion will be in his choice to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. John Roberts, his initial choice before he was chosen to succeed Chief Justice William Rehnquist instead, was a good one from the public’s perspective. Bush will need to find someone at least that solid the second go-round.
UPDATE III:A Time Magazine poll shows the same trend as the other polls: a downward shift in Bush’s numbers, so the question now remains: has he “bottomed out” (since his base will stick by him, support him and adopt his administration’s thinking and positions in a virtually all cases) can now start going up, or is it possible he can go down even more (lose every single one of the independents who have according to polls now are more in line with the Democrats, lose small portion of real Democratic support he retains and start to lose parts of his base)? Or is this as good/bad as it will be for the rest of his term. Some details:
President Bush’s overall approval rating has dropped to 42%, his lowest mark since taking office. And while 36% of respondents said they were satisfied with Bush’s explanation of why the government was not able to provide relief to hurricane victims sooner, 57% said they were dissatisfied….
Americans blame all levels for the failure — not just the feds and not just local and state:
Majorities of those surveyed believe officials at all levels, including the victims themselves, are responsible for what went wrong in the hurricane’s aftermath. Almost three quarters (73%) blame state and local officials, 70% blame Federal agencies, such as FEMA, 61% blame President Bush, and 57% blame the victims themselves.
Again, Bush’s numbers aren’t good here, or is this a good sign for perceptions:
Over half (52%) said the government at all levels did a “poor” job preparing for Hurricane Katrina before it hit the Gulf Coast. With Americans closely watching the aftermath of Katrina, they are concerned about their own security during times of crisis. More than half (57%) say they are “very” (27%) or “somewhat” (30%) worried that the government will not be able to provide relief and assistance to their community if a national disaster or terrorist attack were to occur. About two in five (42%) say they are not worried…A majority (62%) say the government responded too slowly, and more than a third (35%) say it responded as quickly as it could, given the circumstances.
There isn’t much in this poll that will cheer the White House except: it could have been worse (and it could have been better). The question remains where does all of this go from here. Time also asked questions about whether people would rather money spent for Iraq be spent here, etc. but those are hyptotheticals among hyptotheticals right now. The things to watch are (a)the trending, (b)the trending on job performance, (c)the trending on whether people feel the country is on the right track (which makes the large number of people worried about government relief and assistance in the future a warning sign for the administration).
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.