well, bush's poll rating are taking a dive:
http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/fi...1_image001.gif
a composoite graphic cited in this article from yesterday's washington post:
(excerpted here)
Quote:
Bush's Approval Takes a Tumble
Friday, Mar 25, 2005; 12:42 PM
Was President Bush's showy foray into the Terri Schiavo case a tremendous political miscalculation? Or could it be those skyrocketing gas prices?
One way or the other, Bush's approval ratings seem to have taken a sharp tumble in recent days.
As I noted in yesterday's column, the latest CBS and Newsweek polls showed a sudden drop-off.
Now comes Gallup, finding the public's satisfaction with the president at an all-time low.
Bill Nichols writes in USA Today: "President Bush's approval rating has fallen to 45%, the lowest point of his presidency, according to a new USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll."
"The finding, in a poll of 1,001 adults Monday through Wednesday, is a dip from 52% in a poll taken last week. . . .
"The White House declined to comment. Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said that Bush is taking on 'tough issues, whether it's to reform Social Security, promoting the spread of democracy or making a renewed pitch to Congress to pass comprehensive energy reform.' "
Here's a fascinating fact: "The new poll found the largest drop for Bush came among men, self-described conservatives and churchgoers."
Now I should point out, to be fair, that Bush's approval ratings were as low or lower in other polls last spring, when the public was at the height of its unease with the situation in Iraq and the prison abuse scandal. See pollingreport.com for more.
And Gallup itself explains: "This is the lowest such rating Bush has received since taking office, although it is not significantly different from the 46% approval rating he received in May 2004."
So what's up?
Gallup speculates that "[t]he timing of the seven-point drop suggests that the controversy over the Terri Schiavo case may be a major cause."
But the survey also "suggests that the public's increasingly dismal views about the economy, and about the way things are going in general, could also be factors in Bush's lower approval rating. . . .
"One factor contributing to the economic malaise is almost certainly the rising price of gas and oil. In an open-ended question, 17% of Americans cited fuel prices as the most important economic problem facing the country, up from just 5% who said that a month ago, and 3% who mentioned it in mid-January."
Here is the spread in approval rating polls since Bush took office, from DePaul University economics Professor Stuart Eugene Thiel's wonderful Professor Pollkatz's Pool of Polls Web site.
Thiel has another chart showing how Bush's approval tracks pretty closely to gas prices (inversely of course).
For a little historical context, I went back to look at pollingreport.com's summary of President Clinton's second-term job approval ratings, and it looks like they never got anywhere near so low. In fact, even during impeachment proceedings they remained largely in the 60s.
The Gallup numbers come on the heels of a CBS poll that found Bush's job approval rating down six points in a month to 43 percent, with his disapproval rating up four points to 48; and a Newsweek poll that found Bush's approval rating down five points to 45 percent, with his disapproval rating up six points to 48 percent.
Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press finds that support for Bush's proposed private accounts for Social Security dropped over the last month among its most likely supporters: younger Americans.
"In February, people age 18-29 favored the idea of private accounts by a 66%-19% margin. Today, just 49% favor private accounts, while 25% are opposed, and nearly as many (26%) say they don't know how they feel about the issue.
"Despite the White House effort to keep Social Security reform on the front burner, public awareness of the issue has not increased substantially over the past month."
Ironically, for the White House, that's a good thing.
"In general, opposition to the plan to allow private accounts is much higher among people who have heard a lot about it than among those who are less familiar with it. Overall, people who have heard a lot about the plan oppose it by 52%-41%, while those who have heard little or nothing favor it by a 47% to 30% margin."
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so the schiavo thing isnt going so well for the right.
people are not buying the bushline about social security. despite the hard sell.
the administration continues to operate on the economy as if acting pollyanna makes sense.
so the polls are tanking for cowboy george.
bush at least waits to say anything about the "local crime" that is the latest school shooting
doldrums fall upon the conservative media apparatus.
but wait!
the nra could say that "we" should arm all teachers in school.
gun control--now there is a pet issue.
the conservative base will rally around this because arguments against this idiotic proposal move straight into gun control space.
it does not matter really how insane the argument itself might be: what galvinizes is the counter argument---if you do not in principle support arming teachers in schools, then you must support restricting guns.
i agree with charalatan--if anyone is seriously contemplating arming teachers in a school--which is of course quite a fine message to send educationally--you students are the enemy, we are so afraid of you that we come armed to defend ourselves against you---then the nra should also advocate arming students.
i am sure that there is some hellfire and brimstone kind of rationale that could be floated for this: it is good that everyone knows they could die at any minute.
this is a karl rove special shit sandwich, a story floated to counter trends in polls, a bit of nothing designed to agitate the base and help mark it off as over against the Adversary, which in this case is simple reason. its effect in spaces like this explains its existence at all. this is not a serious proposal---the implications are so profoundly bad--if you can take your eyes away from the gun issue and think, maybe, for a minute, about the educational question.