MyDD :: Bush Approval Stuck in the Mud

Bush Approval Stuck in the Mud

by Jonathan Singer, Fri Mar 31, 2006 at 05:38:15 PM EST

George W. Bush may have arrested his fall in the polls but he certainly has not regained any momentum according to the latest polling from Time magazine.

Despite the fact that the President has expended great effort in the last few days to reconnect with voters, he clearly has not been effective. According to the latest Time survey, which was conducted over the last two days with a margin of error of roughly 3 points, President Bush's approval rating is 37 percent, a statistically insignificant change from 39 percent last week -- though a drop nevertheless.

This was not the most interesting statistic from the poll, however. The Time survey asked a number of questions related to immigration reform and one piece of data particularly stuck out to me. According to the poll, Americans favor allowing illegal immigrants already in the United States to gain citizenship if they have a job, learn English and pay taxes by more than a 3 to 1 margin. So much for the notion that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to any form of amnesty...

Tags: George W. Bush, Pulse, Approval Rating, Immigration (all tags)

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Re: Bush Approval Stuck in the Mud (none / 0)

"...they have a real blindness to the reality of politics in America today." therein lies the problem. National strategies are all well and good at higher levels of abstraction but people don't vote for abstractions. People vote for local ideas, needs and desires. Bravo for Dean's 50 state plan

by shirt on Fri Mar 31, 2006 at 05:54:17 PM EST

Re: Bush Approval Stuck in the Mud (none / 0)

did this get posted to the wrong diary?

McCain sucks!

by teknofyl on Fri Mar 31, 2006 at 06:03:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Falling Or Not? A Technical Question Just Now (none / 0)

Over at Mystery Pollster and Political Arithmetik they've been discussing this of late, and the answer is... well, what it almost always is, you can't tell what is happening now in terms of opinion change, you can only talk about the recent past. But in this case, the argument can be made much more precise.

Just over a week ago, Charles Taylor wrote "New low or steady as you go?" with a graph comparing two different approaches, differing in sensitivity, and showing the differences they generate in trend lines. He favors averaging over a longer period of time, which is less sensitive to short-term changes and plain old statistical noise. This approach shows Bush continuing to fall. A more sensitive approach shows Bush stabilizing. But that was a week ago.

Even better is his post, "'Unchanged Since Yesterday: Detecting Change in Presidential Approval" which explains why most polls show no change in approval, even in the midst of prolonged declines. It starts off thus, following a graph:

Approval of President Bush, 2001-2006. The blue line is the estimated trend from 1/1/2002 through 3/19/2003. During this period approval declined from 84% to 58%, a rate of 0.061% per day, or one percent every 16.3 days. The downward trend is both statistically significant and undeniable based on visual inspection. Yet of 56 Gallup polls during these 15 months, only 5 (8.9%) found a significant change in opinion from the previous poll. What gives?

If that's not enough to make you click a link, I'll add that his current estimate has Bush's approval rating dropping 1 point every 7.6 days since the State of the Union--"(about twice as fast as in 2002)."

It's still the limbo ("How low can you go?") Presidency, IMHO, as well as the Presidency from Hell.

by Paul Rosenberg on Fri Mar 31, 2006 at 06:43:38 PM EST

True believers (none / 0)

As dubya drops in the polls his true believers make for a larger percentage of his support. These folks will hang on to the bitter end. As a consequence dubya's standings in the polls will stabilize when it reaches that core of the true believers, those who aren't paying attention, and exclusive viewers of the Faux News Channel. This, my opinion, is from my observations of their behaviors in their natural habitat. I also fully realize that the plural of anecdote is not data.

September 28, 2003

....Last Friday, toward the end of our vigil on the Quad, we were approached by a somewhat older individual, that is, she was not a typical college student. She asked my colleague about his sign which pointed out the casualties before and after the "Mission Accomplished" photo-op on the aircraft carrier. Once my colleague explained that to her, she replied, "Yes, that's too bad." Then, as she walked away she turned to us and added, "George W. Bush is the greatest president of the last hundred years." Speechless, I could only laugh incredulously. My colleague replied, "Then you must really like half trillion dollar deficits." She retorted, "That's they way liberals think..."

March 25, 2004

....This particular individual was pleasant enough when he approached. My colleague carried a sign "By invading Iraq the President has greatly undermined the war on terror", quoting Richard Clarke on the intelligence failure which is this administration's war in Iraq. Our visitor pointed to the sign and said, "Are you ready to debate?"

"He's a traitor." "Why is that?" "He's lying and it's for political purposes." "What lies did he tell?" And on and on. "He was demoted." "He served a number of presidents starting with Reagan over the last 30 years." "This is the first instance ever where someone has used intelligence for political purposes." "Oh, really? Did you know that at least two people in the White House outted a CIA operative?" "How do you know that?" "A columnist, Bob Novak, wrote an article doing so." "Well, your problem should be with him." "Well, somebody in the White House told him." "How do you know?" "It's prima facie evidence of a crime, a felony." "Well, your problem should be with Novak."

And on and on.

The debate grew louder and our interlocutor continued to construct his arguments.

"George Bush is the only president to do anything to defend America against terrorism. He's taking it to the terrorists." "Then why are we in Iraq?" "They supported terrorism. You think the people of Iraq were better off with him."

And on and on.

I said to the two students who were standing next to me observing the exchange, "That's a classic straw man argument. Notice how he's redefining the assertion and then attacks that? We see that a lot." At another instance (they flew fast and furious) I said, "Yep, there goes another one."

At one point he shouted out to everyone on the Quad "George Bush is the greatest president we've had since Abraham Lincoln. God bless George W. Bush...."

November 24, 2005

....I am perplexed by your statement "...I still valiantly support our President". I'm no longer interested in this debate, the time for the "game" of debate is long since past, and I, for one, am tired of that game. But, I must ask you this question, the tortured peregrinations of Jonah Goldberg notwithstanding: If you haven't yet done so, why haven't you enlisted....? [I received no reply]

543,895 votes

by Michael Bersin on Sat Apr 01, 2006 at 09:29:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: True believers (3.00 / 1)

I agree with your point, and even think there's empirical evidence supporting it. Taylor's look at the data suggests that Nixon's hard-core floor was about 25%, as he bounced around that level for 8 months before finally resigning, though he might possibly have fallen further as the House Republicans voted for impeachment, as they were clearly about to do.

It's an open question whether Bush's floor would be higher or lower, but the dynamics are clearly quite different in a number of ways. Most notably: (1) We're never going to have a serious investigation, (2) The GOP is never going to stand apart from Bush and criticize him on independent principles.

IMHO, this pinpoints precisely why the Dems ought to focus on censure and impeachment: to drive Bush's numbers down, split off all but the most fanatic kool-aid-drinking core supporters, and to force the rest of the GOP to pay the price for putting a single man not just above the law, but above all other principles they pretend to have.

by Paul Rosenberg on Sat Apr 01, 2006 at 10:33:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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