|
I
referred earlier to conservatives jumping the Bush ship amid increased
insecurity and declining credibility.
Here’s
the summary of one poll mentioned below: Zogby 090805 Bush
Job Approval Hits 41%—All Time Low; Would Lose to Every Modern President;
Public Rates All Levels of Government Poorly in Katrina Handling; Red Cross
Rated Higher Than Federal Government, 69%-17% http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1020 Republicans
in Congress will be under increased pressure to repudiate Bush’s leadership,
priorities, just as Democrats needed to do when Clinton self-destructed. The
Rove Slam Machine is losing its punch. Good thing The Disaster President
doesn’t care about polls, eh? White House Briefing: Bush Losing Support From His Base By Dan Froomkin,
Special to washingtonpost.com, Friday, September 9, 2005; 1:36 PM Through thick and
thin, President Bush has always maintained the ferocious backing of his
Republican base. Until now? As I wrote in yesterday's
column
, partisan squabbles are something the Bush White House has found it can handle
just fine, because the base hangs tough. But public outrage over the Hurricane
Katrina debacle has the potential to transcend politics as usual. And quite possibly, something is up. According to the
latest national survey by the Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press , Bush's overall job approval rating has
dropped to 40 percent -- an all-time low for this/that poll -- and his
disapproval rating has climbed to an all-time high of 52 percent. That's a
four-point shift in both numbers from July. But look at the detailed
results
for the story behind the story.
That four percentage point shift from just two months ago isn't fueled
by any significant change of mind among Democrats and independents. Instead,
it's all a reflection of a shift in Bush's base. Republicans polled in July said they approved of Bush by an 88 to 9
percent margin. In September, that margin was 79 to 18, reflecting a 9 percent shift from approvers to disapprovers. That's a
very significant change. Pollsters,
in fact, often look at the gap between two answers as the more telling number. By that reckoning, the gap between
Republican approval and disapproval has dropped from 79 to 61 -- or 18 points. §
§
Among conservative
Republicans, there was an eight-point shift, from 91-6 to 84-14. (That's a
15-point change in the gap.) §
§
Among moderate and
liberal Republicans, there was an 11-point shift, from 81-15 to 70-26. (That's
a 22-point change in the gap.) Pew asked specifically
about Bush's handling of Katrina relief efforts and found: "Two-in-three Americans
(67 percent)
believe he could have done more to speed up relief efforts, while just 28
percent think he did all he could to get them going quickly. . . . "Fully 85 percent
of Democrats and 71 percent of independents think the president could have done
more to get aid to hurricane victims flowing more quickly. Republicans, on
balance, feel the president did all he could to get relief efforts going, but
even among his own partisans 40 percent say he could have done more." Will
Lester
of the Associated Press has word of the latest AP-Ipsos poll, just out this morning: "Almost two-thirds, 65
percent,
say the country is headed in the wrong direction -- up from 59 percent last
month. "President Bush's job approval was at 39 percent, the lowest point
since AP-Ipsos began measuring public approval of Bush in December 2003." And don't forget the two polls I mentioned yesterday -- from CBS and Zogby -- which showed disapproval with
Bush's response to the hurricane at 58 percent and 60 percent, respectively. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html |
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