deja vu http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030114/4775840s.htm WASHINGTON -- President Bush's job approval rating as he nears the middle of his term has dropped below 60% for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll has found. The number reflects a rising uncertainty about a sluggish economy and the prospects of conflict with Iraq and North Korea. The dip in Bush's rating to 58% from 63% last week is within the survey's margin of error of +/-3 percentage points, but it marks a steady decline in his approval numbers, which peaked at 90% days after the terrorist attacks.
Does anybody have numbers on Clinton's approval rating at this time during his first term? Reagan? Bush Sr.? I'm really interested to see if these numbers actually mean anything.
From Charlie Cook (sorry can't provide link, access restricted website) Although history tells us there is absolutely no relationship between a president's job approval rating during his first 33 months in office and whether he was subsequently re-elected, it is still interesting to watch a president's poll numbers before that time marker for signs of potential vulnerability or enduring strength. In 1982, at the end of their second year in office, Republicans lost 26 House seats and came within 34,000 votes of losing five Senate seats and control of the Senate, while President Reagan had only a 41 percent approval rating in the Gallup Poll. Yet two years later, Reagan won re-election with almost 59 percent of the vote, carrying 49 out of 50 states. President Clinton had Gallup approval ratings in the 40-42 percent range in December 1994, a month after his party lost 52 House and eight Senate seats. Yet, he won re-election by an 8.5-point margin two years later. President Nixon had an unimpressive 52 percent approval rating in December 1970, but carried 49 states in 1972. President Carter enjoyed a 51 percent approval rating in December 1978, only to lose to Reagan by 10 points.
Poll numbers twenty-one months before the next election are meaningless to anyone but those politicians who let their policies be guided by them, err... I guess that's all of them. But as an indicator of likeleyhood to be re-elected they are absolutely meaningless, a fact that Bush the Younger knows all too well. See above.
His stimulus plan looks as if it was written by people expecting to be out of power in two years, and hoping to empty the till before they leave and leaving President Sharpton to clean up the mess.
I figure that Bush has 12 months max to get the economy on track or he is in trouble, no matter how well World War 2.5 goes for us. If we get into a long conflict (my bet that NK would give us that type of war) then Bush is screwed.
I won't comment on what you meant with this comment. I can't assume, and you would not assume Bush wants war and especially for some poll numbers? It's the oil, stupid! That aside, you make the case for these numbers not being of any real value. Bush I was in the 90s after Gulf War I and that didn't help. I can't shake the idea of "Americans" being selfish when it comes to hard times, but you know most of us here never really saw real hard times. It is a relative term and these indicators are either slow to show progress or downturns until we get caught with our pants down. This being a sports related site, we know this is simply the "fire the coach" line. I am the first person born in this nation to immigrants from Peru and my vision of the nation and my pride for it leads me to say many things "real Americans" find foolish and blind. I back whomever is in power in good and bad times. I have as much a right to support changes and at the very least you will find most 1st generation and naturalized citizens take that power seriously. Ironic that it is the economy (stupid) and claim the war is all about oil, but you ever think how much our economy is linked to oil? My father, always the active GOPer, took me to a Presidential Round Table session in DC back in 1990. We went all over the city and the like and had one session that stood out in my mind even until today. We had some US Senators give some chat about oil and the energy plans, etc. Nobody expected me to ask a question and especially the one I did to the Senator from Alaska. I asked him, what other options and plans do "we" have for alternative sources of energy and to lessen our need for more oil. Who let this kid in here? I was so scared that I can't really remember the spin I was given. Only a few months later we were at war and for what? Oil? Ah, back to economy. You want hard times? Heck, I could tell you of dirt poor and I mean dirt as in no floor in a house, just the dirt, but there is always someone even worse. Your blues ain't like mine... You want to know why the economy is so volatile? The need for instant gratification is the problem. Spin, cycles, economic theory, different stages in people's lives, long term, day traders, short term, corruption, internet tracking, election funding, Wall Street gambling...reactive crap...where even more cattle are lead to slaughter. My dad built an "empire" for a Peruvian illegal alien. Ironic enough to say that people who guided him when he arrived now work for him. I once asked him about getting into the market and making real money like those guys in the news, movie and TV. He told me that money you don't earn by real work (immigrant mentality I call it) not only will be gone as fast, but is not what we do. I apply this ethic into my own busineses, current school work and (my favorite) the work around the house. The economy is a bread and butter issue and is a viable issue for politics, but if the nation has to tighten the belt, we Americans need to do the same. That is why I made those comments in support of any war this nation faces. It is not like I want war or even think our plan is correct. But, if...IF...this nation is at war, and by that I mean here on our soil, I have zero doubt that we will join as common people and defend ourselves. I was commenting with my brother the other day that I wouldn't fight in Iraq or even support our need for war. He remembered how I was ready to join in 1991. Semantics maybe but there is a difference. We all grow older and most of us grow up.
One of the best posts I've seen on these boards in a long time. Oil is one of the largest factors in determining how the economy goes, this is sometimes forgotten due to the dot com effect on today's economy. I could go on about the need for alternative energy sources independently from the Iraq situation, but it'll come up again so I'll spare you all for now.
OUR econony. Many other industrialized countries are better prepared. It's scary how quickly we forget.
Poll numbers are not meaningless two years b/f the election, only these types of poll numbers. Big difference.
True. Here in the US, it will practically all come back to oil and energy, no matter how many dot com ideas with no infrastructure are out there.
yadda, yadda, yadda This nation "faces" very very few wars. Rather, it has historically had the option of joining in or not. There is absolutely no reason for citizens, let alone legislators, to line up behind the Prez and the military out of loyalty or duty. Democracy 101. Failure to fall in is not due to instant gratification or other consumerist tendencies. In fact, a good argument could be made that an Iraq war would be waged in the name of instant gratification. Iraq ain't WWII or even Korea. And, truth be told, the "war" on terrorism ain't WWII either. The worst day in our Osama policy was the day it became a "war."
Well, I disagree with this. I bought, and buy, entirely into the premise that the nation-states that shielded al-Qaeda are as culpable as al-Qaeda. That was Bush's "We will make no distinction" doctrine, but it appears to be in abeyance alongside "We will bring our enemies to justice or justice to our enemies." I read this editorial in the LA Times this weekend about public opinion being unfair to our dear, dear friends, the Saudis. If you get a chance to read it, don't. I only stopped gagging a couple of hours ago. At this point, I also don't buy the idea that Iraq is part one in a miniseries wherein we whatever-euphemism-you-choose the entire Middle East that doesn't jump when we say "frog." I doubt we can afford to conquer the entire place, even when our occupation plans are as half-assed as the ones in Afghanistan. I'm still, even in retrospect, in favor of the war in Afghanistan, but letting the place sink into a chaos that would make Somalia smirk with patronizing condescension wasn't in any platform I was standing on. Since the good outcomes of a war in Iraq involve a difficult and expensive occupation (or a brief and half-assed one that just hands the problems to the next generation), I'd rather we do it to a country that at least, you know, has it coming.
I'm not saying that I disagree with all use of military force as a method for countering terrorism, including states providing safe harbor ... though by that measure, we wouldn't have sidled up to Pakistan in order to take out state-sponsored terrorism in Afghanistan. The point is that the entire approach to a terrorist attack has been cast in the terminology of war. Without this backdrop, invading Iraq would not be politically possible. Not to mention that the drums of war inhibit any introspection or continued analysis of root causes for the terrorist problem. Bundling the entire foreign policy of the US government into "you are with us or against us" is a big mistake.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I speak from one man's perspective while you seem to follow what hippie professors (what is up with all this 101 crap anyway?) and have the pulse of the entire nation. To the fact, where have I said I support a war in Iraq without some disclaimer? Just as you said, we as a nation (ie: Bush in this case) have options. We as indivduals also have options. Regardless of war issues, I think you missed the point of the thread, stupid. The war is the instant gratification the markets will use to react as they see fit.
Yeah, the potential for blowback re: Pakistan is, uh, non-trivial. What with them actually shooting at us and stuff. I chose to believe that "you are with us or against us" is pretty much the policy to take with the Taliban (who chose...poorly) and Saudi Arabia (who we're not really asking to choose). The point of covertly financing a group like Bin Laden's is to provide deniability to his financiers. "With us or against us" cuts through a lot of the diplomatic nonsense that would have been required if we were going to act as if the government in question weren't acting as agents and enablers. And it would have been with Iraq, as well. No one was more surprised than I was to learn that Saddam apparently had nothing to do with 9/11 or al-Qaeda, but that seems to be the case. I suppose at this point - and the longer the time that goes by, the less likely we'll know for sure - that it's BARELY possible that the House of Saud really wasn't involved with al-Qaeda up to their eyelashes. Typing that sentence made me snort with derision, but it's possible. So what would be required would be the total, unquestioning and subservient cooperation in finding the people who were responsible. What I didn't realize, though, is what happens if this theory is applied to a nation that wasn't involved. I believe wholeheartedly in the idea of the "you're with us or against us" idea, but it has to be applied with a modicum of common sense. Massing troops on the border of Sweden until Queen Christina cooperates, for example,isn't going to be helpful. But it's far from unreasonable to demand that the government take responsibility for the conduct of the people within its borders, or accept the consequences. If a cabal of Americans were killing foreigners by the thousands, I doubt the government would *head explodes with irony*
Frankly, I couldn't make head or tail of your post. The main argument seemed to be that hard times would build character - I suppose I'll agree with that truism.