If you thought President George Bush’s poll ratings couldn’t go down much further, you were wrong.
A new Newsweek poll shows him drawing numbers at a new low in post-election America. Perhaps it’s a sign that some in the party base are irked over the recent comments he made indicating he’ll work with Democrats, plus lingering ire over the timing of the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
But the poll isn’t all good news for the Democrats, either:
President George W. Bush’s response was swift and decisive—if a little late. After voters gave Republicans “a thumpin’� at the polls, handing Democrats control of both houses of Congress, Bush banished his contentious defense secretary; invited the presumptive leaders of the new House and Senate to lunch (would-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had pasta; the president ate crow, a Bush aide joked); and suffered through two pained photo-ops with Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Nevada Senator expected to become Majority Leader. And what did the president get for listening to the voice of the American people? The worst approval rating of his presidency.
President Bush’s job approval rating has fallen to just 31 percent, according to the new NEWSWEEK Poll. Bill Clinton’s lowest rating during his presidency was 36 percent; Bush’s father’s was 29 percent, and Ronald Reagan’s was 35 percent. Jimmy Carter’s and Richard Nixon’s lows were 28 and 23 percent, respectively. (Just 24 approve of outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s job performance; and 31 percent approve of Vice President Dick Cheney’s.)
But there’s more: it sounds as if Americans are now writing Bush off as the lamest of lame ducks:
Worst of all, most Americans are writing off the rest of Bush’s presidency; two-thirds (66 percent) believe he will be unable to get much done, up from 56 percent in a mid-October poll; only 32 percent believe he can be effective. That’s unfortunate since 63 percent of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country; just 29 percent are satisfied, reports the poll of 1,006 adults conducted Thursday and Friday nights.
And the Democrats? Perhaps they should continue to be cautious about being gleeful and more careful about realizing they’ve in-effect been given an “audition” rather than a free reign to do whatever they feel like doing:
But the new poll carries sobering news for Democrats, too, still on their post-victory high. Just about everyone believes the Republicans lost the 2006 midterms more than the Democrats won it. Presented with a list of factors that may have contributed to the Democrats’ success, 85 percent of Americans said the “major reason� was disapproval of the administration’s handling of the war in Iraq, 71 percent said disapproval of Bush’s overall job performance, 67 percent cited dissatisfaction with how Republicans have handled government spending and the deficit, 63 percent said disapproval of the overall performance of Republicans in Congress, 61 percent said Democrats’ ideas and proposals for changing course in Iraq. Tellingly, just 27 percent said a major reason the Democrats won was because they had better candidates.
What this means is, more than ever, we’ll likely see two huge efforts at work. Bush & Co are going to work to regain their base but (presumably) never totally write off independent voters again. There IS a center in American politics; it changes from time to time and the White House and GOP went way beyond it.
On the other hand, the Democrats have to realize that they didn’t come to power because the country woke up one day and decided that all Democratic party candidates were superior in specific ideas and general philosophy. The country was in-effect giving the Democrats another chance — and another look.
That’s all the more reason for Ms. Pelosi et al to resist pressures from some on the party’s left who seem to feel the elections were a mandate for impeaching Bush. It’s clear many Americans have had enough of the politics of polarization and demonization and would like Congress to do something highly unusual these days: provide vigorous oversight of the executive branch and tackle issues that actually matter to most Americans.
Today, Nov. 12, 2006, impeachment is as critical a top priority for most Americans just as Congress intervening to keep Terri Schiavo connected to life-support was last year.
Bush needs to rebuild his credibility and support; the Democrats need to consolidate theirs.
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.