Bush falling like the ROCKhead he is for getting us into this mess:
Bush Falls to Pre-9/11 Approval Rating
By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Beset by reversals at home and
abroad, President Bush has seen his job-approval
rating tumble to its level before the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, and he now faces an electorate as narrowly
split as in the 2000 election, new polls have found.
In a succession of surveys, Bush's support has eroded
— amid public anxiety over the rising price tag and
casualty count in Iraq and the continued sluggishness of
the domestic economy — to the point where
Americans divide almost exactly in half on whether he is
doing a good job as president and whether they prefer
him or a Democrat in the 2004 election.
Both in its precarious balance and its sharp polarization
along lines of partisanship, race and education, the
country's assessment of Bush today closely resembles
the achingly close divide that defined the 2000 vote and
the first months of his presidency.
"We are back to where we were in 2000 and where
we were on Sept. 10 [2001]," said Andrew Kohut,
director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for
the People and the Press. "In a sense, we are back to
square one."
Most analysts in both parties agree that Bush is stronger today than he was
before Sept. 11 in one key aspect — voters have more confidence in him as a
leader, particularly in the war against terrorism. And in next year's campaign,
Bush should benefit from an enormous fund-raising lead over the eventual
Democratic nominee, as well as a formidable Republican effort to turn out
supporters.
But growing doubts about Bush's policies on Iraq and the economy have
depressed his support in most polls to the 50% level that experts in both parties
consider the danger zone for an incumbent.
GOP strategists were quick to point out that other presidents with approval
ratings even lower than Bush's during their third year — including Ronald Reagan
and Bill Clinton — easily won reelection.
But the approval ratings for Reagan and Clinton were rising around this point in
their presidencies. In the last 50 years, the only presidents whose approval ratings
were unambiguously falling in Gallup surveys as they entered their election year
were Gerald R. Ford and George H. W. Bush, the president's father. Both were
defeated.
"There is plenty of time still for [the younger Bush] to recover," said Alan
Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "But the trend is
more worrisome for him at this point than where he is in absolute terms."
Bush's approval ratings fell after an avalanche of bad news. He has been hurt by
continuing U.S. casualties in Iraq, public sticker shock over his request for $87
billion that would mostly go to that country for security and rebuilding efforts, and
the reluctance of allies who resisted the war to contribute troops or money.
At home, he is struggling against a continued loss of jobs — almost 2.7 million
since he took office — that threatens to leave him the first president since Herbert
Hoover to preside over a net job loss during a full term.
Also, the Census Bureau reported recently that in 2002, the income for average
families declined for the second consecutive year, poverty shot up by 1.7 million
(the largest one-year increase since the elder Bush was president) and the number
of Americans without health insurance grew by 2.4 million (again, the biggest
annual increase since his father was in office).
On top of that, Bush now faces a brewing scandal. As Democrats push for an
independent counsel, the Justice Department is investigating reports that
administration officials disclosed to journalists the name of a CIA operative to
retaliate against her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson had
concluded in a study for the CIA that there was no evidence to support claims
Bush voiced in his State of the Union speech in January that then-Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain enriched uranium for nuclear weapons in
Niger.
Stanley B. Greenberg, a leading Democratic strategist, said Bush's troubles might
have crystallized when he gave his speech in early September unveiling the
$87-billion spending request — apparently far more than most Americans were
expecting.
"For two years, he was the commander in chief and his image was shaped by that
circumstance and people's desire for him to succeed," said Greenberg. "What
happened in Iraq was people lost confidence both in what was happening on the
ground and his honesty, and that led people to look at him differently on all
aspects. Suddenly, problems that were accumulating matter a lot more."
Abramowitz, who specializes in studying the relationship between public opinion,
economic performance and election outcomes, says the good news for Bush is
that all this bad news is coming now. Most voters don't solidify their opinions on a
president until his fourth year, with attitudes about the economy hardening about
six months before election day, he said.
That leaves Bush a substantial window of opportunity to rebuild support.
However, in a judgment echoed by other analysts, Abramowitz said Bush's
decline in support has left him largely hostage to events: He's unlikely to see his
approval rating rise enough to guarantee an easy reelection unless he can point to
tangible improvements at home and in Iraq.
For Bush to find himself in such a position is a remarkable change in the political
landscape. After Sept. 11, he enjoyed the most sustained boost in approval that
any president in recent times had experienced amid a national crisis.
Before Bush, every president who got such a boost had seen his approval ratings
fall back to pre-crisis levels in 46 weeks or less, GOP pollster Bill McInturff
found.
But Bush's boost lasted just over two years. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll
taken just before the 2001 attacks, 51% of Americans said they approved of his
performance. He remained above that level until last week, when the latest
CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey put him at 50%, the weakest showing of his
presidency.
Five other new national surveys have shown Bush hovering between 49% and
55%. Likewise, polls matching Bush against a generic Democrat, or asking
whether he deserves a second term, are now consistently finding the country
divided almost exactly in half — just as it was in the 2000 race between Bush and
Democrat Al Gore.
Indeed, careful examination of the recent polls suggests that Bush is once again
strong where he was strong in 2000, and weak where he was weak.
The new Pew Center survey, for instance, found that 45% of Americans would
vote to reelect Bush today, while 43% would prefer the Democrat. Bush led by
12 percentage points among men; in 2000, he carried men by 11 points,
according to network exit polls.
Women, who gave Gore an 11-point margin in 2000, preferred the Democrat by
seven points in the Pew Center poll.
Bush led among Republicans by 83 percentage points (exactly his margin in
2000), and trailed among Democrats by 67 points, a slight improvement from his
showing three years ago. Independents in the survey preferred Bush by two
percentage points — exactly his margin in 2000.
While these numbers indicate that Bush retains a solid base of support among
Republicans and conservative-leaning independents, they suggest that he has
failed to significantly expand that base.
"Where he is now suggests that he hasn't capitalized on the positive feelings that
the public had for his administration in the weeks, months and even year following
[Sept. 11]," Kohut said.
Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for Bush's reelection committee, says it is
unrealistic to believe that the president can secure lasting allegiance from voters
outside his base because the nation has become so polarized in its political
attitudes.
"You've got 80% to 90% of the country that look at each other like they are on
separate planets," Dowd said.
But others believe that Bush may have squandered the opportunity to win over
voters attracted to his leadership on terrorism by advancing an ideologically
polarizing agenda centered on tax cuts at home and the pursuit of war in Iraq
without explicit U.N. approval.
"His style has been to play to his base," Abramowitz said.
That approach could still carry Bush to victory next year. McInturff noted that
incumbent presidents usually lose only when they suffer significant defections
within their party and face strong primary challenges — the circumstances that
helped doom Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Bush's father in 1992.
Still, with the huge wave that lifted him after Sept. 11 having dissipated, Bush
appears to be approaching the 2004 election much the way he began his term:
with the country polarized almost evenly for and against him, and a critical slice of
swing voters ready to break the tie based less on personal allegiance than the
results he delivers.
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