Why Bush is in serious trouble.

Presidents are re-elected on the economy and Bush's approval rating for his handling of the economy is down to 36%. That is really as low as his numbers can go. Almost all of the remaining 36% are kool aid drinking, true believers who think his bowel movements smell like perfume. If his numbers on the economy were to drop any lower, he would be in danger of losing the Republican nomination,

It is also, highly unlikely that the economy could improve enough in time to save him. The election is a little over 14 months away, but the economy will have to show significant improvement in the next 6 to 8 months for Bush to get any credit.

- Being in 'trouble' means little when you own the media. The corporate media can always redirect the blame somewhere else: 'partisan Democrats'...'War on Terrorism"...the list goes on and on.

What part of "36% approval rating on economy" don't you understand. If control of the media were helping him, then his economy rating would be in the 60's.

Yes his numbers with regards to the economy is low but if the media was doing its job his overall job performance numbers would be much much lower. What person would approve Bush's performance if the media really told people the truth and nothing but the truth.

He lied to get us into a war that is costing many lives and money. He threatens anyone who tries to prove that the war was not justified (i.e., CIA agents and their spouses), the economy is in the shit hole regardless of what the media is telling us, Bush could have done more to prevent 911 from happening, his administration only looks out for the big corporations that sponsors his pResidency, and there is not one good thing Bush has done since he has become President. If the media would report this who could objectively say that Bush is overall petformance is good? No one unless you are a Repuke!

If you look a a graph of his popularity, you will see that it began to decline immediately after he was inaugurated and then it spiked after 9-11. This is a natural phenomenon known as "rally around the leader" that happens anytime there is a great national tragedy. After 9-11, his numbers returned to their previous death spiral until he invaded Iraq and they spiked again, then his numbers starte going down again. They are now hoovering at 50 percent, which is extremely low and his re-elect number are down in the low 40's.

the moron or not, but when I watch MSNBC, CNN and what little I see of Fox "News", they sound like chearleaders for the moron. If they really turn it on, they can have huge influence on the American public. RPIGS owning the radio is the scary thing though.

this is an issue where he is very vunerable. There is absolutely nothing that the chimp can do to reverse the economic trends. After this winter things are going to be much worse in the economic news, natural gas is spiking upwards, fuel oil will be out of sight, just staying warm this winter is going to cost so much, and cold people are pissed people. Especially when you're out of work, without unemployment beneifits, I think he's going to face a challenge from within.

The BushToast is eternal in GD. I am still waiting for his demise based on the SOTU lies. :eyes:

No dripping faucets in sight.

...his scrawny a$$ is bounced out of the Oval Office for good.

he had low number and got re-elected. His father got bounced with higher numbers on the economy. Carter did too.

I'm acting like he is an unscrupulous bastard with a widespread and very effective spin machine, and that nothing will do more to ensure another "win" for him than complacency that he's going to lose just because the econ numbers point that way.

his spin machine is clearly not helping him. His economic numbers have hit rock bottom with his spin machine in high gear. There is nothing he can do to get these number up. He can't spin them up and he can cut taxes anymore. He has to sit back an hope the economy makes a miraculous turn around in the next 6 to 8 months.


Also, no one is advocating complacency. The reason I posted this was to show that Bush can be beat, because I see so many post on DU where people have all but given up and I think they are being foolishly pessimistic.

they are only now starting to report how great the economy is now doing....all these fony "good" numbers being reported from the government about the economy is being played over and over by the so called "liberal" media. I don't trust anything that this government reports. But the mainstreem media reports it and 99% of the population will believe it and soon they will start to think the economy is doing great!

but they can't hide the layoff and the stagnent markets.

Some of you just seem to enjoy wallowing in your own misery.

and can spin it the way Rove wants it to be. We can win this election, but it will have to be on the ground. Door to door.

The GEMS program can be accessed remotely with Microsoft Access and the totals can be changed. It happened in the midterms. 3 counties in Tx that won by 18181 votes repuke ? Come on. We have to stop the electronic voting fraud. Bev Harris has done excellent work on this subject.

fair election. If the game the system, all bets are off.

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er...uh...what was that about raising the level of discussion around here?

If I don't have a paycheck coming in and I'm about to go down the tubes, I don't care what the media or anyone else tells me about who is to blame. I'm going to vote for a change in leadership and the more visible the better. It doesn't help when I hear that billions are going into Iraq every month.


Cher

No amount of media spin is going to make a mortgage payment. Or put food on the table.

I don't understand the constant negativity here.

And we all know the favorite axiom..."if you repeat something often enough it becomes true."

Well it hasn't worked for them so far. HIS NUMBERS ARE ROCK BOTTOM! The numbers are clear. No one outside his base approves of the way he is handling the economy.

You keep saying "his numbers have hit rock bottom!". They haven't. They have merely fallen from the stratospheric heights they once were at. His approval ratings are still above 50%, and no sitting President has ever lost re-election with approval ratings above 50%. Granted, we have more than a year to go and his numbers may fall just like they did for Poppy. However, you make it seem as if we already have the election in the bag--we don't. If the election were held today, polls show that Bush would beat any of the candidates currently running. Yes, its true that some polls show Bush losing to an "unnamed" Democrat, but those types of polls always favor the "unnamed" candidate.

I agree that things look better than they did six months ago, but we still have much further to go.

The rock bottom he's talking about is not his popularity or approval but his numbers on the economy. 36% approve in this poll of his handling on the economy and I agree w/ him, that's about as low as it can get. There's a segment of the population that would still approve of anything the Chimp did no matter what, and he also explains this in his initial post. You're misrepresenting what he said.

The title of this thread is: "Why Bush is in serious trouble". Given the fact that no sitting president has ever lost re-election with overall approval ratings above 50%, and numerous have won with numbers in the low 40's (Reagan and Clinton for example), I see no reason for the title's optimism. Are things better than they were six months ago? Yes. Is Bush in trouble? Not yet.

You were specifically talking about and criticizing the use of the posters phrase "rock bottom", as was I, which if you'd bothered to read the thread you'd know referred to Bush's numbers on his handling of the economy, NOT his approval ratings. Whether he's in serious trouble or not is a matter of opinion and interpretation. What the term "rock bottom" refers to is not a matter of opinion, but one of reading comprehension, which either you lack or your being disingenuous. I suspect the latter...

Go back up and read the post I was responding to--post #16. Now read it again. Now read it again. Did you see the words in big bold letters? They said:

HIS NUMBERS ARE ROCK BOTTOM!

They didn't say the his economic numbers have hit rock bottom. They said his numbers have hit rock bottom. That's the post I was responding to.

If you want to see what rock bottom numbers look like, you need to look at Gray Davis, which is, BTW, another reason I'm not as optimistic as you are about our chances in 2004. I can't count how many times I seen people here at DU completely miss the boat when making predictions. This is just another example it.

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Now look at my whole post.

The point I was making in my post was that optimism displayed in the title of the thread is unwarranted at this point in time. Now do you disagree with this point, or are you merely quibbling?

I understand the point you were trying to make, however, you wrongly criticized something that you took out of context and tried to make it appear as if the poster was talking about Bush's approval ratings hitting rock bottom and that that was why Bush was in serious trouble. The rest of your post was predicated on this invalid criticism. The posters point, is that Bush is in serious trouble because his ECONOMIC numbers have hit rock bottom. You could merely have admitted that you misread or misinterpreted the posters intent about the rock bottom statement and still made a valid criticism that you felt Bush wasn't in serious trouble for the reasons you've stated. When I pointed out your mistake/misrepresentation, instead of admitting you were wrong in your attribution of that statement, you tried to dissemble. Why is that? I called you on it.

Do I think he's in serious trouble? Maybe not serious, but he's in some trouble because of these numbers. However, that's MY opinion and the numbers are open to intepretation. I could see how some might think he is in serious trouble because of these numbers. I think the trouble he's in is mitigated for various reasons. Do I think we should be optimistic over these numbers? Yes, we should have some guarded optimism, but there's still lots of work to be done.

I was responding to people who were talking about the press spinning the numbers on the economy. As assumed the anyone who read my posts would not be too stupid to realize that I was talking about his economic numbers. I guess I was wrong.

Maybe we agree after all. Here's a few questions:

1) Do you believe that if the election were held today that Bush would lose?
2) Do yo believe that Bush's economic number will go up, stay the same, or go down between now and the election?


My answers are No and Up. That's why I don't share your optimism.

"Who cares what you think?"

Afraid to answer I see.

Reagan was at 53% when he defeated a man who ran on a platform of raising taxes.

Clinton was consistantly polling in the high 50's when he beat Dole.

I'm thinking that you're not looking at numbers taken close to the election.

You post a bunch of unsubstantiated bullshit and then have the gall to ask for sources.


"But as the economy improved, so did Reagan's poll numbers. He climbed back to 60 percent -- for the first time in 3 1/2 years -- almost exactly on Election Day of 1984. He won in a landslide."


But now, his job approval numbers consistently top 50%. Democrats in Congress believe that if Clinton's poll numbers continue to rise, it could be better to stand with the president against Republicans.

George H.W. Bush end of term approval rating 56%

The Bush numbers you cite are for end of term, not election day. Election day numbers are the ones that count. The CLinton numbers merely back me up: Presidents with numbers above 50% don't lose.

is that his overall rating is still a lot higher than his economic rating because of foreign policy (Iraq, terrorism). As long as there's that disparity Bush may defy the odds and win in spite of the economy.

actually i give him his lowest ratings in the area of Iraq and terrosism....everyone should.....if only the "liberal" media would do its job!

Bush I had high numbers to, until Bill Clinton started hammering him on the economy. Shrubs overall numbers are much lower at this point than his fathers were. Poppy's number were sky high at this point in his term which was only 5 months after the end of the gulf war.

* poll #s would be scraping the high 20's(his bushivic base).

because his bushivic base in in the low 30's.

Despite the fact that the media is constantly mouthing the administration's propaganda that the economy is in a robust (but jobless) recovery, the perception by the public is that it ain't so. Every Friday I watch Washington Week on PBS and look for some sign that the news folks are starting to veer off script and report that there is a disconnect between what we are told by * and reality. There is one of the gentlemen "news readers" (reporter is probably a stretch) who throws in some comment about how good things are,

When the mortgage interest rates rise to the point that people cant refinance to get cash to keep buying things as unemployment increases, then the perfect storm will occur. Then, maybe, people will take a more critical look at all the other transgressions of these criminals. Which they should have done all along.

of the economy and has no intentions of fixing it. He has already been pre-reselected (look what Rove said re: Fla. and brotherly love). We in Fla. need a miracle cause Jeb is on the job.

about how sunny days are here again. 24/7.

he hasn't been in serious since he knocked over the vase and he had to "wait til his father got home."

... I think the reason for the negativity here is that the rank and file American does not give a rat's ass about what happens to Iraqis so long as they can feel like they are part of the "don't mess with the US" team. People here at DU are focused on that outrage and the lack of media, and general American, support of the obvious - that the war was a mistake and we were lied to extensively to push it. But since the media hasn't jumped on our bandwagon, some here IMHO completely misinterpret the reasons for that.

Bush* does not "control" the media any more than Clinton did. And people like to puff their chests about Iraq, because the costs to them are well hidden. But you cannot hide being out of work, you cannot hide drowning in a sea of debt, you cannot hide from high interest rates brought on by deficit spending. People will give Bush* a pass on the economy, but only to a point. And that point has been reached.

The warm fuzzy feeling about Iraq has already given way to angst for a lot of Americans. Bush* has pissed off many of his base (soldiers for example) by showing that he doesn't care about them one effing bit.

I don't care so much about polls but the fact is people vote their pocketbooks and the *only* way Bush will not succumb to this is if the Dem candidate lets him lie his way out of his responsibility for the sad state of economic affairs, or if another 'terror' attack of massive proportions happens before the next election. Literally, IMHO unless we nominate a really weak candidate, this is ours to lose.

And finally, about the voting machine stuff. It is one thing to rig elections when no one suspects what you are doing. It is quite another to do it when you know your every move is being scrutinzed.

And it is.... thanks to Bev Harris.

has fixed the economy and results will show after the election. The whore media will strongly peddle this line.

Will enough people believe it? That's the question.

I live in Texas, and I can hardly talk to my friends because they are TRUE BELIEVERS in Bush. But even they hesitate and shake their heads over the body bags.

I frequent a few conservative forums and I can tell you that the numbers of Bush defenders are shrinking, not growing. Furthermore, those that do still defend Bush do not do so as ferociously anymore.

in the economy. When people don't have the money to spend at wally world, target, jmart, or the malls, because they haven't any disposable income after paying the utilities, filling the car, or other of lifes neccessities. When the retailers are slashing prices to rock bottom and crying that they can't move their merchandise, then people will start noticing that things aren't too damn rosy.
When this version goes shopping and buys a pair of socks to help stimulate the economy, then the democratic alternatives are going to look awfully damn good.

If the stores don't have a banner year this season, President Schleprock is done for. Take it to the bank.