President's Ratings Still High, Poll Shows
75 Percent View Bush as 'Strong Leader'; 66 Percent Approve His Work Performance
URL: washingtonpost.com
By Dana Milbank and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 22, 2002; Page A04
Fifteen months after the terrorist attacks that transformed his presidency, President Bush continues to be buoyed by an enduring impression among Americans that he is a powerful leader, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
By most measures, Bush has returned to mortal levels in public opinion. Sixty-six percent of Americans continue to approve of his work -- an enviable level but well below the 92 percent support he received just after the attacks and closer to the 59 percent approval he had in July 2001. Yet, 75 percent said they viewed Bush as a "strong leader," up 20 percentage points from July 2001.
The perception of Bush as strong has outlasted all other improvements he made in public esteem after the attacks; even among those who oppose Bush, few question his strength and determination. The view of Bush as a powerful leader has clearly extended beyond the reflexive response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and public opinion experts say it may help to explain Bush's durable popularity even while Americans have significant doubts about his economic and foreign policies.
"He's shown strong leadership, proved himself to be a man of integrity," said Michelle Tonning, a homemaker in Holland, Mich., who participated in the Post survey. "I think he's showing very strong leadership with the situation in Iraq. He is not being hoodwinked. He is standing firm." Tonning also thought Bush appeared strong when he said he would receive the smallpox vaccination because he asked the troops to. "I think that takes an enormous amount of courage," she said.
Tonning voted for Bush two years ago, but her sentiment is much the same as that of Sonya Hill, another homemaker, from Evanston, Wyo. Hill voted for Al Gore in 2000. Bush "came across as a strong leader when we had those horrible September 11th attacks," Hill said. "He made decisions that aren't always popular. He's stepped up to the plate and said, 'This is how things have to be.' "
The "strong leader" impression is well known to Matthew Dowd, who as a Republican National Committee consultant is Bush's polling director. "His level of support is based on issues and personality traits that are indicators for broader values such as strength of leadership," Dowd said. The essence of Bush's popularity, Dowd said, is this: "He's a strong leader, and he understands people like me." Of the two, the strong-leader component is more noticeable; asked if Bush understands the problems of "people like you," respondents to the Post poll said he did by a slim margin of 51 percent to 47 percent , down from 61 percent to 37 percent in January.
Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and co-author of "The Emerging Democratic Majority," believes the leadership ratings are narrowly based on Sept. 11, 2001, and thus precarious. He predicts Bush's approval ratings "will resume their decline."
Bush's image of strength explains why he wins similarly high marks for his personal traits and his work as president. Sixty-six percent have a favorable impression of Bush, identical to the number who approve of his job performance. By comparison, Bill Clinton in his second term often had job-approval ratings as high as Bush's current rating but the number of Americans viewing him favorably dipped as low as 39 percent.
Bush's image of power is rooted in personality and policies. On policies related to national strength, he rates extraordinarily high -- 79 percent say he is doing a good job handling the war on terrorism, including about 7 in 10 Democrats, and 67 percent like the way he has handled homeland security. Overall, this seems to outweigh his mediocre handling of the economy (50 percent approve) -- and his poor ratings on health insurance issues (33 percent).
Overall, Bush's average job approval rating for the first two years in office is 72 percent, substantially higher than the ratings of Presidents Ronald Reagan (56 percent), Jimmy Carter (54 percent), or Clinton (51 percent) during their first two years, and just edging out his father's rating (70 percent).
Americans continue to be skeptical that Bush has truly "changed the tone" in Washington or that he is different from other Republicans. And majorities think he is influenced too much by large corporations and oil producers. And Americans don't necessarily think Bush has their interests at heart. While those in the poll favored government services and balanced budgets over tax cuts, they had the perception that Bush favored tax cuts over both alternatives.
Yet, Americans do not let these disagreements influence their perceptions of Bush's personal attributes. Huge majorities said they found him honest and trustworthy (70 percent), and said he has a vision for the future (74 percent) and understands complex issues (63 percent). Bush gets higher marks for all of these traits than he did before Sept. 11.
But the perception of Bush as a strong leader outpaces all other gains. This may be a reflection that Americans feel more secure. Sixty-five percent said Bush made the country safer and more secure.
"Personal qualities that relate to performance are clearly important," said Andrew Kohut, who directs the Pew Research Center poll. Bush's high ratings "also reflect the fact that people feel the country is under threat," Kohut said.
When asked an open-ended question about why they had a favorable impression of Bush, 14 percent said he was a "strong leader." Others gave answers that also reflected the strength of the president's leadership: 13 percent said they liked his style, 22 percent said they liked his values, 19 percent cited the war on terrorism, and 41 percent said he is simply doing a good job.
By contrast, those who had a negative impression of Bush were much more likely to cite Bush's policies than his personal attributes: 19 percent did not like his Iraq policy, 16 percent did not like his economic policies, 15 percent objected to other policies, and 11 percent said he favored the rich or was too conservative.
"He is misleading the country after his failure to deal with al Qaeda by his obsession with Iraq," said Dan Hobbs, a state worker in Norman, Okla. "He's taken a surplus, and he's depleted it into a tremendous deficit." But even Hobbs admires Bush's tenacity on the terrorism front. "I think for six months [after Sept. 11] Bush worked masterfully. He got the approval of the world and world cooperation," Hobbs said.
A total of 1,209 randomly selected adults were interviewed Dec. 12-15 for this survey. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Director of polling Richard Morin contributed to this report.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company |
