Bush on the down low: As noted in an earlier posting by Jon , George Bush is continuing his race for the record lowest approval rating since Gallup polling began after WWII. Indeed, it appears he’s on track to reach an unimaginable low, hitting 29%, with plenty of time left to REALLY screw up.
Back in April, the Washington Post was saying Bush had already reached an all-time post-war low job-approval rating at 45% and eschewed speculating how low he could possibly go. Good thing, ’cause any bets laid back then would probably have been off by 10 points or so.
By comparison, the other presidential approval ratings in the first year of their second term include Clinton (59% approval vs 35% disapproval), Reagan (56% vs 37%), Nixon (57% vs 34%), Johnson (69% vs 21%), Eisenhower (65% vs 20%), Truman (57% vs 24%). Yeah, Nixon rated almost twice the approval as Bush, just to put George’s Icarus-like plunge into perspective.
But it’s not difficult to get way on the down low when you start off low — Bush’s approval rating just before the 2004 election was between 47% and 48%. And yet he still was re-elected.
The Prez isn’t going to satisfied with just tanking on the approval front, however, he apparently is fully committed to failure. According to the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Oct. 6-10 among 1,500 adults, the president is “beset by problems on multiple fronts.”
For the first time, a plurality of Americans believe that Bush will be remembered as an unsuccessful president. In other words, a failure.
The president’s overall job approval rating has slipped to 38%.
And on a number of issues, ranging from the federal budget deficit to relations with U.S. allies, majorities or pluralities say that Bush’s policies have made things worse, not better.
In advance of Iraq’s Oct. 15 constitutional referendum, public opinion on the war has taken a negative turn. For the first time since the war began, a majority of Americans (53%) say the U.S. military effort there is not going well. Half of Americans now say the decision to use military force in Iraq was wrong, up from 44% last month. Support for keeping U.S. forces in Iraq, which had remained stable over the past year, also has declined. As many Americans now say the U.S. should bring its troops home as soon as possible as favor keeping the troops there until Iraq is stable (48% vs. 47%).
Bush is doing such a crappy job that 69% of those polled are already looking three years ahead to the next presidential election, and say they would prefer to see a president who offers different policies from the Bush administration rather than one offering similar programs. Only 25% want more Bushlike programs. By comparison, in June 2000, as the Clinton administration was nearing the end of its tenure, only 52% of Americans expressed a desire for a change of course.
Which is no surprise, given that people are finally beginning to see just how badly Bush’s decisions and policies suck:
By a margin of nearly two-to-one, more say President Bush has had a negative (41%) rather than a positive (21%) impact on politics and the way government works in Washington. This reflects an 11-point decline from the number who said in March 2004 that Bush had made things work better in Washington; however, the number saying he has made things worse has risen only two points (from 39% to 41%).
So start your own office betting pool: How low can Bush go? And let us know who wins. We already know who loses ….
Most Americans are now aware that Bush is a phony and a total failure… everyone, that is, except Bush. Because he remains in a bubble — created by his closest “advisors” at his request — he will continue to ravage our democracy for another 3&1/2 years unless we DO something about it.
We are thrilled to see a majority of Americans finally coming around to the truth about this administration.
But will we allow him to remain in office despite his lying us into an illegal war?
Will we permit him to make appointments to the Supreme Court that will impact our lives for decades and erode hard-won rights?
Will we watch as his (crony)appointments to federal agencies continue to dismantel environmental and other protections?
Will we forget that he was never elected in 2000 in the first place?
If we sit by and do nothing except gloat and cheer about his current misery then Bush and his neocons will have won great victories after-all.
This man must be impeached and any appointments, policies and programs instituted by him must be rescinded.
Carrie & Elisia Ross-Stone