May 14, 2006

Are you better off now than you were 6 years ago? A majority of Americans say "no," and prefer the foreign and domestic policy, the taxes and fiscal responsibility and the vision for America we lived under President Bill Clinton.

In a new poll comparing President Bush's job performance with that of his predecessor, a strong majority of respondents said President Clinton outperformed Bush on a host of issues.

The poll of 1,021 adult Americans was conducted May 5-7 by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Respondents favored Clinton by greater than 2-to-1 margins when asked who did a better job at handling the economy (63 percent Clinton, 26 percent Bush) and solving the problems of ordinary Americans (62 percent Clinton, 25 percent Bush).

On foreign affairs, the margin was 56 percent to 32 percent in Clinton's favor; on taxes, it was 51 percent to 35 percent for Clinton; and on handling natural disasters, it was 51 percent to 30 percent, also favoring Clinton.

Moreover, 59 percent said Bush has done more to divide the country, while only 27 percent said Clinton had.
[Poll: Clinton outperformed Bush - CNN - 05-12-06]

Whoever the remaining 25% die-hard supporters are, First Lady Laura Bush dismisses the majority opinion admitting she keeps her distance from most Americans.

"I don't really believe those polls. I travel around the country. I see people, I see their responses to my husband. I see their response to me," she said.

"As I travel around the United States, I see a lot of appreciation for him. A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Stay the course'."
[Laura Bush doesn't believe bad polls - Reuters - 05-14-06]

The First Lady really needs to get outside her husband's bubble more often and take a better accounting of what the true toll of staying this President's course has taken on the majority of Americans.

May 12, 2006

These numbers should get a lot better among the President's right-wing base as the Republican controlled Congress and White House address corruption, ethics scandals, record deficit spending, gas prices and the war in Iraq by trying to ban abortion and deny gay families constitutional rights this summer.

President Bush’s job-approval rating has fallen to its lowest mark of his presidency, according to a new Harris Interactive poll. Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 29% think Mr. Bush is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president, down from 35% in April and significantly lower than 43% in January. Approval ratings for Congress overall also sank, and now stand at 18%.

Roughly one-quarter of U.S. adults say “things in the country are going in the right direction,” while 69% say “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.” This has been the trend since January, when 33% said the nation was heading in the right direction. Iraq remains a key concern for the general public, as 28% of Americans said they consider Iraq to be one of the top two most important issues the government should address, up from 23% in April. The immigration debate also prompted 16% of Americans to consider it a top issue, down from 19% last month, but still sharply higher from 4% in March.
[Bush Dips Into the 20s - Wall Street Journal - 05-11-06]

May 09, 2006

Yet another poll confirms that there are still some Americans that support our President's decision to committ our nation to war in Iraq. One third believe our President is doing an amazing job. They are called Republicans, and they might even live a couple of houses away from you and I.

Personal evaluations of Mr. Bush are the lowest they've ever been during his presidency. On the public's confidence in Bush's ability to handle a crisis, 51% had been the previous low in September 2005. That figure is now at 50%. The President's handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis is tied to that decrease.

There is also concern that Mr. Bush is spending too much time on foreign policy issues: 55% think so. Also, on the issues that are most important to Americans, Iraq and gas prices, Bush's ratings have dropped.

On handling the issue of rising gas prices, Bush's performance rating dropped four percentage points from what it was a month ago (from 17% to 13%).

With the Iraq war, Bush's approval rating dropped one percentage point (from 30% to 29%) since last month. Similarly, only 30% of poll respondents said they have some degree of confidence Bush will be able to end the war successfully. The poll also reveals that 56% of those polled said that United States should have stayed out of Iraq; this number is the highest it's been since the start of the war.
[Poll: Dim View Of Bush, GOP - CBSnews.com - 05-09-06]

May 08, 2006

Three out of 10 Americans agree: President Bush is an amazing leader!

President Bush's approval rating has slumped to 31% in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, the lowest of his presidency and a warning sign for Republicans in the November elections. The survey of 1,013 adults, taken Friday through Sunday, shows Bush's standing down by 3 percentage points in a single week. His disapproval rating also reached a record: 65%. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.
[Bush approval rating hits new low - USA Today - 05-08-06]

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us; we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias.
[Stephen Colbert - White House Correspondents Dinner - 04-30-06]

May 02, 2006

"It sure is good to see you young people getting out and voting."

Around noon, Vince and I drove to Joywood Baptist Church, the designated site for voting in our precinct. There are a lot of new residents in the area, but I was surprised to learn from the election officials that only 32 people had voted so far.

On closer look at the ballot, you can see why. Democrats have such a strong hold here in Rutherford County that Republicans rarely bother to run candidates at all.

May 01, 2006

You know a politician is divorced from reality when you can't tell the difference between their most avid supporters and the satire making fun of them.

"Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us; we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias. . . .

"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday, that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man's beliefs never will. And as excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. . . .

"Listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know -- fiction."
[Stephen Colbert - White House Correspondents Dinner - 04-30-06]

April 10, 2006

It seems like every time the President tours America making anew the discredited case for justifying war in Iraq, the rhetoric-weary American people place him at all time lows. Maybe, just maybe, it's because the American people are as smart as the very architect of the war in Iraq himself, former Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people.
The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it.
[Paul Wolfowitz DoD Press Conference Transcript - 05-09-03]

And then there is the conservative fringe explanation for how we feel that insults America's intelligence in the same manner they mishandled intelligence justifying war in Iraq: stupid Americans are just living in an "Orwellian world" and are overwhelmingly "Bush-haters." At least the conservative fringe is consistent even in desperation.

President Bush's job approval rating is at a career low in this latest ABC News/Washington Post poll amid continued broad public skepticism about the Iraq war.

Just 38 percent of Americans now approve of Bush's overall performance in office; it's the lowest mark of his presidency, albeit by a single point. Sixty percent disapprove of how he's handling his job, matching the highest disapproval of his tenure.

One of the primary drags on the president's job approval rating has been the public's negative assessment of the war in Iraq, and in this poll 58 percent say the war was not worth fighting  a majority sentiment for the past 16 months.
[Bush Approval Rating at New Career Low - ABC - 04-10-06]

December 07, 2005

If you are regular reader here, you saw this coming 3 days before today's CBS/NYT poll.

There is good news and bad news in this poll for President George W. Bush. Americans have become more positive about the economy; more than half think the economy is in good shape, an 8-point increase since October.

The President’s overall approval rating has risen from 35 percent in October to 40 percent now, and his ratings on handling the economy and the war in Iraq have also improved.
[Poll: Bush's Ratings Bottom Out - CBSnews.com - 12-07-05]

December 05, 2005

Tom Delay's redistricting plan was viewed as illegal by the Bush Administration's Department of Justice. He was admonished several times by the House of Representatives for ethics violations, saw colleagues indicted on felony charges, and faces money laundering charges.

DeLay and two Republican fundraisers, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, are accused of illegally funneling $190,000 in corporate donations to 2002 Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature.

With DeLay's help, the GOP took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, then pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that resulted in more Texas Republicans going to Congress.

Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns, but it can be used for administrative purposes.
[Update 3: DeLay's Money Laundering Charges Upheld - AP - 12-05-05]

Despite all this, Vice President Dick Cheney still believes Tom Delay represents the very best today's Republican Party has to offer.

Vice President Dick Cheney heads to Houston today to help raise money for former U.S. House majority leader Tom Delay at the Westin Oaks Galleria.

Delay supporters will begin to arrive for a fundraiser around 4pm. Cheney's attendance is a clear sign that the White House is not distancing itself from the embattled former House majority leader, who is facing charges of breaking state campaign finance law.
[Dick Cheney to appear at fundraiser for Rep. Tom DeLay - ABCnews - 12-05-05]

UPDATE 8:25pm: New poll numbers from Tom Delay's district.

The survey found that 49 percent of registered voters questioned said they are more likely to vote for a Democratic challenger than for DeLay in 2006, and 36 percent said they would be more likey to vote for DeLay.

Former Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson is planning to challenge DeLay in the 2006 elections.

The survey also found that 55 percent of registered voters said that the charges that DeLay broke campaign finance laws are definitely or probably true, while 34 percent said they were probably or definitely not true.
[Update 11: DeLay's Money Laundering Charges Upheld - AP - 12-05-05]

December 04, 2005

While you won't hear this declared in the mainstream media until these numbers begin to trend upward (rightfully so), a look at a few recent polls taken around the same time frame show an increase in the president's job approval.

November 25, 2005

Placing polticial ideology ahead of common sense has the Republican Party at odds with the rest of America.

[The Harris Poll. Nov. 8-13, 2005 - PollingReport - 11-24-05]