Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

...this just proves that the "Military" will always side with the Republicans.

That's why we need to let CBS know that this practice of arbitrarily turning down ads that may be "controversial" ... just isn't right.

You don't see a connection between the deficit and tax cuts?

Investor Martin J. Whitman first came to Syracuse University just after World War II, under the G.I. Bill of Rights, a federal program conceived when the country was running deficits that Whitman says was a good use of taxpayer money.

Whitman, Class of '49 and nearly 80, was back in Syracuse on Thursday, in a building with his name on it and in an economy newly stung with word of extensive layoffs at Kodak and a deepening federal deficit.

The U.S. economy in one Whitman word?

"Sucks," said Whitman, known as a straight shooter.

So what's the first step to right it?

"The biggest thing we have to do about it is get rid of the Republicans," said Whitman.

Marty Martensen, one of the most persistent and opinionated contributors to the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, died Jan. 13 of complications from pneumonia. He was 85...

He registered as a Republican when he was old enough to vote and figured he was a Grand Old Party lifer - until late 2000, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush would be the next president.

"Marty hated George W. Bush," said June Martensen, his wife.

"He thought Bush was ruining the country. He was very anti-Bush. In fact, Mr. Bush's antics made him change from being a lifelong Republican to being a Democrat."...

Martensen, a graduate of Grinnell College who was an industrial electronic engineer before retiring, was a devoted reader. Nearly every day, he read the National Review, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the National Observer and other publications that focus on national and international political, social and environmental issues.

People, we have a first, I think.

We've had polls before where the "generic", anonymous Democrat had a lead on Bush. But as far as I can remember, any Democrat specified by name always was behind at least a few percentage points. Clark once came within 2% or something, I think thats been the best.

But here's the new Newsweek poll, from 22-23 January, as compared to the 8-9 January data.

Quote:

Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates. Jan. 22-23, 2004. N=1,006 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.

Bush 46% (-6)
Kerry 49% (+8)

Bush 48% (-2)
Clark 47% (+6)

Bush 49% (-5)
Edwards 46% (+8)

Bush 49% (-3)
Lieberman 45% (+4)

Bush 50% (-1)
Dean 45% (+2)

Note that even Howard Dean has caught up some with Bush, in spite of the most disastrous two weeks of his campaign yet.

I guess the State of the Union speech didnt impress ...

More:

Quote:

"In general, would you like to see George W. Bush reelected to another term as president, or not?"

Yes 44% (-4)
No 52% (+6)
Don't Know 4% (-2)

The same poll has Bush's job rating down 4% in the last two weeks, to 50% exactly.

That's the lowest it's been since May 2001.

The disapproval rate is at 44%. Still a +6% balance for Bush thus. But, still - that 44% is the highest it's ever been.

Forsure, the Newsweek polls are usually among the more unfavourable for Bush. The CNN/Time poll usually has about the same numbers, but the ABC/WaPo poll has always been "behind" a month or so when signalling GWB's falling numbers, while the Fox polls acknowledge new lows for Bush even later.

Yes, you guessed it - I gave myself the day off, and I'm feeling geeky.

We've been citing this poll, that poll, and whenever one poll was cited, another poster would cite another one, contending the representativeness of the first.

So, les' look at them altogether, and see those long-term trends across the polls. Forget pollingreport - this graph is all my own making! Well - all the data are from Polling Report, it's true, I admit it ;-). I've simplified them into max. two results per month - if there were more, I took the average of the data from resp. before and after the 15/16th (except for 9/01).



Coupla things strike me, in all of this:

- The obvious, the point we've been debating: Bush has had two major (and one minor) boosts: the 9/11 aftermath and the Iraq war (and Saddam's capture). These created respective new (but ever lower) heights, from which he would then steadily drop.

- Bush is essentially somewhere between 50-55%, much like he was just before 9/11 happened. The difference is that back then, his negatives were between 30-40%, and they are now up to 40-45%.

- The polls are actually a lot more in agreement with each other than one might have suspected [..] they all show pretty much the same, striking pattern. If there is any exception, it's the Fox polls showing visibly lower negatives for Bush than any other polls.

Here's a zoom-in on the last year or so:

The vice president, whose apparent moderation and 35-year Washington experience reassured voters worried about the callowness and inexperience of Bush during the 2000 campaign, is seen more and more by Republican Party politicos as a drag on the president's re-election chances in what is expected to be an extremely close race.

The reasons are simple: instead of the moderate voice of wisdom and caution that voters thought they were getting in the vice president, ongoing disclosures about his role in the drive to war in Iraq and other controversial administration plans depict him as an extremist who constantly pushed for the most radical measures.

He is seen as not just an extremist, but also a kind of eminence grise who exercises undue influence over Bush to further a radical agenda, a notion that was backed by the publication of a recent book about former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, who described Cheney as creating a "kind of praetorian guard around the president" that blocked out contrary views.

The economy is not responsible for those layoffs, digital cameras are responsible for those layoffs.