nimh wrote:JustWonders wrote:<Carter polled at 39% approval in 1980>
Looks like Bush is getting awfully close...
Doing worse than he ever did.
Despite it not being the economic crisis time of the late seventies
Makes ya wonder
Makes "ya" wonder what?
We have a Republican president with a Republican controlled congress exercising power in a country that is roughly 50% Republican.
From a purely political standpoint what do the approval polls mean?
There is strength and weakness flowing from the fact that he will not run again. Strength in the sense that he need not curry favor with voting blocs as he makes decisions through 2008. Weakness in the sense that his political clout will be all but eliminated once he leaves office, and so to defy him now doesn't carry the same risks as it did in 2003.
Bush remains a favorite of the sort of Republicans who will vote in the 2008 primaries, and, by all signs, it is unlikely that this will change before 2008. Woe betide those Republican candidates who garner a reputation of being disloyal to him. Look to McCain -- somewhat weak in his Conservative bonafides he has, quite deliberately, become a strong supporter of a man with whom he has every reason to have a personal grudge.
There may be one or two candidates who attempt to take a path to the right of W, but they have virtually no chance of success.
Frist, in attempting to win some measure of moderate support (stem cell position reversal) has, through an unnecessarily hamfisted way, alienated the constituency he must have in the primaries. There will be but one McCain, and even if the senator from Arizona doesn't run, it will not be Frist.
Consider:
McCain has established a position with moderates (the legitimacy of which is a subject for another thread) and can be expected to quietly and subtly court the Right that is needed to win a nomination.
Frist has established a position with Conservatives, and seems to now be moving, albeit slowly, to the middle. Many a horse loses the Kentucky Derby by breaking too soon. Hillary Clinton may have the sort of lock with her side of the spectrum that enables her to court moderates before the primaries, but Frist, most certainly, does not.
So, returning to the main point, Bush maintains political power that transcends opinion polls. Of course this could change drastically in the off year 2006 elections. If the Democrats are able to win back congress, breaking with Bush will be seen as a political assist. However, if they do not---Bush will gather even greater political strength.
The interesting thing, to me, about these polls is how the desire to interpret them to the advantage of one's ideology seems to easily trump common sense.
How many times have we heard that polls which indicate that a "majority" of Americans are unhappy with the direction of the country are an absolute indicate of a lack of support for Bush?
I know quite a few people who are diehard supporters of Bush and yet still believe that the country (Thanks to the influence of the Left) is on the wrong track.
In the same vein, there may very well be quite a few Republicans who do not approve of W as president, but who would never vote for Hillary, or any other Liberal, for president.
Because Bush is a tenacious and combative chief executive, he is likely to hold on to his presidential power beyond what might be expected.
It is a mistake, which I hope all Liberals will make, to assume that Bush must become a Lame Duck, and to hope that it will be sooner than later.
These approval polls mean very little in a second term. And let's be honest...if we believed the president was making the right decisions (whether they be categorized as Left or Right) would we really care what the polls say? Would we not even be that little bit more proud of the guy because he bucked the polls?
The sort of back and forth on 2005 polls on A2K seems to have as much relevancy as arguments based on who is leading the American League East in June.