In show biz, performers are often warned that they can be overexposed to the extent where the public no longer considers seeing them novel or it even works to their disadvantage. Is that what’s happening in this poll?
President Bush’s popularity has not been buoyed by a series of public events in recent days, a new CNN poll suggests.
Bush’s approval rating hovers in the high 30s, where it has been throughout October.
The poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corp., found that 37 percent of Americans polled approve of how Bush is handling his job as president; 58 percent disapprove.
The president’s approval dropped slightly from the poll taken a week earlier, from 39 percent to 37 percent, but the change was within the poll’s sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The president’s party may be gaining some ground in Congressional races. Among the likely voters polled, 53 percent say they will choose the Democratic candidate for Congress in their district; that’s down four points since last week’s poll. Republicans get 42 percent support among likely voters, up two points since last week. However, the shifts in support are within the margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
What’s the significance of the CNN poll cited above?
When a President campaigns there are several possibilities:
(1)It could bolster his side. In Bush’s case, he is clearly trying to stir up the party faithful and get them to the polls.
(2)Photos and sound bites of him talking don’t register on the public because he has been seen too much lately. There is a sense of “fatigue” at seeing The Big Guy so often. It’s no longer an event or actual news, since he says the same thing he has always said. so the reaction from much of the public is a yawn.
(3)It boomerangs because by going out into the hustings stumping for candidates may generate enthusiasm among the party faithful, it may also motivate some people who don’t like the President to go to the polls to make sure they cast a protest vote.
Usually when a President campaigns the idea is that he goes out on the hustings so that some of his popularity rubs off on the candidate for whom he’s campaigning.
Stayed tuned a week today to find out whether voters who aren’t Republicans found the scent left on those candidates by a President with low poll numbers appealing.
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.