A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll says a Democrat could beat President George Bush this year:
A majority would vote for a Democrat over President Bush if an election were held this year, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Tuesday.
In the latest poll, 55 percent of the respondents said that they would vote for the Democratic candidate if Bush were again running for the presidency this year.
Thirty-nine percent of those interviewed said they would vote for Bush in the hypothetical election.
The latest poll results, released Tuesday, were based on interviews with 1,008 adults conducted by telephone October 21-23.
In the poll, 42 percent of those interviewed approved of the way the president is handling his job and 55 percent disapproved. In the previous poll, released October 17, 39 percent approved of Bush’s job performance — the lowest number of his presidency — and 58 percent disapproved.
However, all the numbers are within the poll’s sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, so it’s possible that the public’s opinion has not changed at all.
At first glance, this seems dramatic. But this has a basic assumption:
It’s this: Bush would run against a faceless, identity-less Democrat. Bush and the GOP are experts at defining candidates. The old saying “you can’t beat someone with no one” holds here — although GWB has proven to be such a polarizing figure that unless John Kerry ran again with Bob Shrum’s “help,” you could imagine a Democrat beating him now.
Then, too, some will say: “A month is an eternity in politics. A lot can change.”
True, but Bush’s poll numbers recently went up a bit due to the good news about the sedate election to approve the new constitution in Iraq.
Very soon (like, tomorrow for instance) indictments may come down in the Plamegate scandal — and possibly some resignations from the White House staff. Will that help his poll numbers (even if the spin is put out that it’s all a trivial perjury matter pressed by an overzealous prosecutor)?
Also, Mystery Pollster notes that Gallup’s free daily briefing “checked available presidential approval ratings for the four other presidents in their second term and compared George W. Bush to other presidents in their “19th quarter.” The results: At 44% approval, Bush is scoring lower than Presidents Eisenhower (60%), Reagan (61%), Clinton (59%) but better than Nixon (32%).”
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.