Another rational moderate blogger over at "EDM." I will post these to give us some perspective on the other side.
In this edition of Public Opinion Watch:
• Putting the Bush Bump in Perspective
• Public Still Worried Even with Saddam in the Slammer
Putting the Bush Bump in Perspective
CBS News/New York Times poll of 1,057 adults, conducted December 10–13, 2003 (released December 17, 2003)
CBS News/New York Times poll of 635 adults, conducted December 14–15, 2003 (released December 17, 2003)
Sigh. How quickly they forget. You’d think the press could at least remember—oh, say back to last April—when they assess the meaning and probable durability of Bush’s latest bump in the poll ratings. They seem to have difficulty with that, since they’re falling all over themselves talking about how much this political boost will help Bush get reelected. But, as Public Opinion Watch said last week,“it seems unlikely that the bump he gets will be particularly large or particularly long-lived. . . . The three big problems with Iraq have been—and will continue to be—casualties, financial costs and WMD (the abundance of the first two and the lack of the third). . . . Therefore, unless Saddam’s capture really does break the back of the Iraqi resistance . . . his capture, by itself, is unlikely to produce . . . a significant boost in Bush’s chances for reelection, eleven long months from now.”
Public Opinion Watch can keep calm and say stuff like that because he does remember all the way back to April (and even earlier!) and, hence, is a heck of a lot harder to spook than your average member of the press corps. In fact, let’s all put today’s polls in perspective by taking a stroll down memory lane, with the aid of just-released CBS News/New York Times poll data. These data include a poll taken right before and a poll take right after Saddam’s capture, so we get a good picture of the current bump, plus trend data on some key indicators that go back to the previous bump, in March–April of this year.
Start with Bush’s approval rating. The CBS News poll has his rating rising from 52 percent right before, to 58 percent right after, Saddam’s capture. So: a six-point bump, a little more than the four points in the first post-capture poll released (ABC News), but still modest as approval spikes go. (Note that most other recently released polls—NBC News, Gallup, Pew Research Center—are in the six- to seven-point range, so this appears to be the best estimate of the bump’s magnitude.) That’s less than half the size of the approval spike in April from the Iraq invasion and victorious entry into Baghdad. That spike was half gone in a few weeks and completely dissipated (and then some) by July.
This poll also shows Bush getting about the same size approval bump on his handling of foreign policy; in March–April (combining this poll and the NBC News poll), he appears to have gotten a bump more than twice as large, most of which was gone by July.
Bush gets his biggest bump, not surprisingly, on indicators directly related to Iraq. According to the CBS News poll, Bush’s approval rating on Iraq has spiked fourteen points to 59 percent. But his rating on Iraq spiked exactly twice as much (twenty-eight points) during the Iraq invasion and takeover of Baghdad; three-quarters of this gain was gone by early July.
It’s also true that politically important poll indicators that are only tangentially related, or not at all, to the Iraq situation have improved. That’s supposed to show just how much Bush’s position has been strengthened. For example, the CBS News poll has the classic right direction/wrong track question (on where the country is going) flipping from net negative (higher wrong track than right direction) before the capture to net positive (higher right direction than wrong track) afterwards. But the exact same thing happened in March–April of this year, except that the change was twice as big. And this measure was back in net negative territory by July.
Similarly, the poll has Bush’s approval rating on the economy flipping from net negative to net positive after the capture. But, again, the same thing happened last March, only with twice as a big shift. And here Bush was back in net negative territory by late April.
Clearly, a public that was thrilled by the capture of Baghdad could not maintain its enthusiasm for the Iraq adventure and for the president who sent the soldiers there, in the face of a grueling, violent occupation. We should not expect the pattern produced by the capture of Saddam to be any different. Bush’s improved ratings are likely to disappear rapidly, just as they did before (perhaps faster since the gains are smaller), unless there is a fairly dramatic turnaround in the situation on the ground in Iraq.
Public Still Worried Even with Saddam in the Slammer
CBS News/New York Times poll of 1,057 adults, conducted December 10–13, 2003 (released December 17, 2003)CBS News/New York Times poll of 635 adults, conducted December 14–15, 2003 (released December 17, 2003)
With the capture of Saddam, has the public become more positive about the war in Iraq? Undoubtedly, though if the situation in Iraq remains messy and attacks on U.S. troops continue, that increase in positive views will dissipate fairly rapidly, just as with Bush’s post-capture gains in job approval and other indicators (see discussion above).
But it’s striking how much the public remains concerned about the Iraq situation, even with Saddam cooling his heels in U.S. captivity. This is especially true of indicators that relate the results of the Iraq war to its costs. (Questions that ask generally about whether we “should have taken military action” or whether using military force was “the right decision” or whether Iraq was “worth going to war” elicit strong positive reactions and are likely to continue to do so, since they leave out the real world costs and benefits of these actions.)
For example, in the latest CBS News poll, a plurality still says that “the result of the war with Iraq” was not worth “the loss of American life and other costs,” by a margin of 49 percent to 44 percent. That’s down from the 54 percent to 39 percent judgment on this question right before Saddam’s capture, but still negative.
A question on whether removing Saddam from power was worth these costs elicits a more positive reaction, since mentioning removing Saddam from power focuses respondents’ attention on the most positive aspect of the Iraq war’s results. But even here, 37 percent still say, right after Saddam was captured, that this gain wasn’t worth the costs.
The CBS News poll also reports that, by 53 percent to 34 percent, the public still doesn’t think the Bush administration has developed a clear plan for rebuilding Iraq after the war. In addition, 61 percent say that the Bush administration was either hiding elements (45 percent) or mostly lying (16 percent) about what they knew about Iraq’s WMD. And, it’s fascinating to note that 52 percent still think either that the Iraq threat could have been contained (37 percent) or that it wasn’t a threat at all (15 percent), compared to 44 percent who believe Iraq’s threat merited immediate military action.
The CBS News poll also finds that only 24 percent believe the capture of Saddam will reduce attacks on US troops, compared to 52 percent who believe they will stay the same and 19 percent who believe they will increase. Similarly, just 19 percent believe the threat of terrorism against the US will decrease as a result of Saddam’s capture, compared to 60 percent who believe the threat will remain the same and 18 percent who believe it will increase.
These data suggest the administration isn’t out of the woods yet in terms of public perception about the Iraq situation. In fact, given the level of public concern still out there, unless the situation in Iraq does clear up dramatically, the administration seems likely to wind up right back in those woods fairly soon.
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