NYT OpEd: All the President's Numbers (Why * should be woried)

By Ryan Lizza

Published April 23, 2004 in The New York Times

...snip...

In none of the polls this week that purported to show the Bush surge does the president have majority support. Any politician running for re-election sweats when a poll shows him under 51 percent. Voters who say they are undecided almost always end up opposing the incumbent — they know him well, and if they were going to vote for him, they would have already decided. Thus support for Mr. Bush should be seen more as a ceiling, while support for Mr. Kerry, the lesser-known challenger, is more like a floor.

President Bush's overall job approval rating should also be cause for concern. He is trailing behind the last two presidents to be re-elected. Ronald Reagan was at 54 percent at about this point in 1984, while Bill Clinton clocked in at 56 percent in April 1996. Mr. Bush is hanging by his fingertips with a 51 percent and 52 percent rating in two polls released Tuesday. And remarkably, after one of the most concentrated television advertising campaigns in political history, Mr. Bush has seemingly failed to shift a single voter's view of him personally. What pollsters call his "favorability rating" is almost exactly where it was before his ads began.

The other numbers that keep presidents awake at night are the so-called "right direction/wrong track" figures, which ask voters about the general direction of the country and often serve as a leading indicator for a politician's overall health. Here, the news must be worrying to the White House. Even as Mr. Bush's numbers against Mr. Kerry and his job approval rating have risen slightly, the percentage of Americans who believe that "things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track" has climbed to 57 percent from 46 percent last April.

Growing concern about Mr. Bush's Iraq policies is also evident. According to one poll, 54 percent of voters disapprove of the way Mr. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, and a record 65 percent believe the level of American casualties in Iraq is "unacceptable."

MORE

dead though. Now if they could just wake up to what is sitting in the White House. I sure would like to see some impeachment action. I sure would like to see the repub party so attacked and exposed that no one would admit to being a republicans for 100 years.

Once the investigations start, it will become apparent very quuickly that a lot of criminal acts were perpetrated and/or overlooked by the Republicanmajority. Once this starts, I think the reaction of the American people will bury the GOP for decades.

Maybe then the political battles will be framed as Greens vs. Democrats. Wouldn't it be a welcome change to see the policies debated on shades of progressivism?

As a Green, I am ready. ;)