"What's happening is he's starting to lose his own base," says pollster John Zogby, whose last poll had Bush at 40 percent but who doesn't challenge the new CBS numbers.
"He's under 45 percent among NASCAR families, gun owners and red-state voters. He's down to 51 percent among born-again Christians."
Zogby makes one more mathematical calculation: "He's beyond the point, at 34 percent, where he can govern."
Which may explain why so many congressional Republicans have been eager to break loose from the administration on the issue of Dubai operating U.S. ports. This rebellion is partly ports, partly polls.
(Right now, the only person who makes the president look good is the vice president, who now has an approval rating of 18 percent, a level thought to be mathematically impossible. For perspective, Zogby notes, 18 percent was the approval rating of O.J. Simpson in 1994.)
The CBS poll found that for the first time, a majority -- 51 percent -- doesn't think the president cares about people like themselves. Only 30 percent now approve of the president's conduct of the war in Iraq, and 62 percent think the war is going badly -- an attitude that drags down Bush's traditional strength, conduct of the war on terror, and hammers down his overall rating. |
