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October 14, 2005
News Flash: Results From Pew Poll 'Prove' That Those Who Didn't Vote For George Bush Still Don't Like Him!
Topics: Political News and commentariesWhat a revelation (not really)!
A new Pew poll has found that for the first time, more people say George W. Bush's presidency will be judged as unsuccessful than say it will be seen as a success.
According to the Pew Research Center , forty-one percent of respondents said Bush's presidency will be seen as unsuccessful in the long run, while 26 percent said the opposite. Thirty-five percent said it was too early to tell, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
In January, 36 percent said successful and 27 percent said unsuccessful. The increasing pessimism about Bush's long-term prospects comes at a time when many polls have found the public increasingly is negative about Bush's performance and the direction of the country."However, MacRanger at MacsMind tells us that when you visit the Pew Site and sift through the "pesky" internals, you see that Democrats and Independents don't like him, didn't vote for him and still don't like him. However, among Republicans (the ones that elected him) his numbers are still solid. Democrats haven't liked him from day one and independents, well they don't like anyone anyway.
Powerline (via MacsMind) provides us with an important perspective on Presidential Poll numbers that compares President Bush's current numbers to other past presidents. Apparently, there is a time during every administration that every president experiences a period of low popularity:
*Kennedy: 56%
Eisenhower: 48%
*Johnson: 35%
*Nixon: 24%
*Ford: 37%
*Carter: 28%
*Reagan: 35%
*Bush I: 29%
*Clinton: 37%
President Bush is currently at a 41.7% average in all polls; that's higher than all of his predecessors except Kennedy and Eisenhower. Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings at least five points lower than Bush's current nadir. Powerline offers a bit more perspective on the matter in his addressing of declining support from conservatives.
Objectively, the evidence for a "conservative crack-up" is thin, at best. The reality is that the Republican base is holding remarkably firm, in the face of a media onslaught against the Bush administration that has no parallel in modern history, and following months of little but bad news: gas prices, hurricanes, and casualties in Iraq (the only news most people hear from that part of the world). Things could change, of course, but my guess is that the next year's news will be better for the administration and for Republicans than the past year's. The price of gas has likely peaked; Iraq will continue to stabilize, and troops will come home; absent more natural disasters, the economy will resume its steady growth; Harriet Miers will be confirmed and start voting with conservative majorities on the Court. Most likely, liberal dreams of the end of the conservative era will have to be deferred again.In "Ranking the presidents: continuity and volatility," we are reminded that In different eras different values and issues come to the fore; this is not a sign of inconsistency but of adapting to new realities. It matters much less how we rank a president than that we deliberate about which important values we ought to use to understand our past and shape our future.
In an important sense, the rankings tell us more about the ranker than the president ranked. But that is appropriate and useful. The history of the United states (or any polity) should be about adapting ourselves to new circumstances and deciding how our old values and principles ought to be adapted to meet new realities. Thus in evaluating presidents or in revising our understanding of our history we are actively engaged in changing our values and adjusting to the future. This is as necessary as it is inevitable.As we have been reminded by Powerline, the media onslaught against the Bush administration has had no parallel in modern history, and for a president that has had to deal with extremely high gas prices, several destructive hurricanes, casualties in Iraq (the only news most people hear from that part of the world), and what is emerging as the most challenging war in the history of mankind, a true war "for" the continuation of "civilized" existance and freedoms, he's actually not doing too badly.But as I argued in the introduction, the value of ranking presidents lies not in the outcome of arriving at a "valid" ranking of presidents. The value rather lies in our deliberation about the reasons why we ought to rank some presidents higher than others. Our reasons and weighting of the criteria change as time passes. This is appropriate and necessary for our evolution as a polity. In different eras different values and issues come to the fore; this is not a sign of inconsistency but of adapting to new realities. It matters much less how we rank a president than that we deliberate about which important values we ought to use to understand our past and shape our future.
Add to the President's unprecedented resistance, obstruction, and venomous open hostility from a trully mindless, hate-filled maniacal Democratic left and a left-wing media, and I think that he's doing quite well.
Posted by Richard at October 14, 2005 3:35 PM
Articles Related to Political News and commentaries:
- News Flash: Results From Pew Poll 'Prove' That Those Who Didn't Vote For George Bush Still Don't Like Him! - Oct 14, 2005
