Bush, GOP Approval Ratings Hit New Lows (Bush at 36% in AP poll)

[wookie294]

WASHINGTON - President Bush's approval ratings hit a series of new lows in an AP-Ipsos poll that also shows Republicans surrendering their advantage on national security — grim election-year news for a party struggling to stay in power.

Democratic leaders predicted they will seize control of one or both chambers of Congress in November. Republicans said they feared the worst unless the political landscape quickly changes.

"These numbers are scary. We've lost every advantage we've ever had," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio said. "The good news is Democrats don't have much of a plan. The bad news is they may not need one."

• Just 36 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, his lowest-ever rating in AP-Ipsos polling. By contrast, the president's job approval rating was 47 percent among likely voters just before Election Day 2004 and a whopping 64 percent among registered voters in October 2002.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060407/ap_on_el_ge/troubled_republicans_1

[melody]

1. The bad news for Tony is he hasn't seen Howard Dean lately :) n/t

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Dems seem to have lots of plans.

A lot of them pretty good, on balance. All the repukes seem to have is perverts, traitors, con men and "Dems don't have a plan".

[unblock]

3. to "not be banana republicans" sounds like a great plan at this point

sometimes all you have to be is not a criminal.

[Born Free]

13. doom and gloom vs peace and prosperity

The GOP has been selling doom and gloom, it's time to let the sun shine in with peace and prosperity again...

[wake.up.america]

6. Herr Scheisskopf, the good thing is that the Republicsan cannot claim..

it could be worse under the Democrats, because it can't.

[rwenos]

8. Repukes Also Have . . .

Dead soldiers on their watch, massive suspension of civil liberties, Court-packing, corporations taking over the government, rank incompetence in the face of Hurricane Katrina, and scare tactics.

And my RW brother in law, who lives in Tom DeLay's district west of Houston, thinks Bushie Boy is the Second Coming.

It's religious fascism. It's religious fascism.

[LiberalEsto]

23. Higher gasoline and energy prices,

higher prescription drug prices, higher housing costs, higher college costs, higher medical co-pays, higher insurance prices, and, according to the news today, higher unemployment than immigrants to the US.

This does not make for happy voters.

[Piscis Austrinus]

26. I think you've got it right on the button

....religious extremists probably form 1/2 to 2/3 of that 36%.

The cause for concern with these folks is that they are very well-funded. I don't know how familiar you are with religious extremists, but one thing I can tell you with some certainty is that tithing - and beyond tithing - is very much a part of the charismatic/evangelical movement. There's a LOT of money in the business of extreme religion.

What seems puzzling to me is exactly how the relationship works between the religious side of the GOP and the political evangelicals. I have no doubt that this group of people has been carefully cultivated by the GOP because of its willingness and ability to raise lots of money and few questions. However, we also know that there is a significant faction on the political side that has the tendency to despoil its allies. I can't buy into the idea that a lasting political dynasty can be built on a religious base that is no more than about 15% of the electorate, no matter how well funded, because that base is probably at its strongest point in the past sixty years - and is not likely to grow further.

The slowing of growth has two roots: first, there are only so many candidates available (e.g. there are only so many suckers born every minute) and second, the fraying we see in the support of the current government almost has to be reflected in the support of the evangelicals for their own movement. Too many prominent religious-right figures (Dobson, Reed and Kennedy, to name three) have prominent ties to this administration and to the Republicans. Sooner or later, their judgment (if not their ethics) is going to be called into serious question.

Having been in an evangelical church for several years, I can say with some confidence that taken individually, 95% of evangelicals are decent, kind, well-intentioned folks. They get some things wrong, just like the rest of us, but they also get some things right, and shouldn't be blanket-condemned as fascists when the fact of the matter is that they're either underinformed or misinformed. As the scandals keep detonating around Washington, the ones who are serious about their faith will have to reach a point where they are no longer able to reconcile this administration's (and its appointees') actions with Biblical teaching. The brightest of the evangelicals are already starting to do this; I know it happened with me several years ago.

The drain of the better minds in the evangelical camp mirrors the drain of intellect from 1930's Germany. The difference is that the better minds in that time went to the safest available place - here. In this time, there are few safe havens, and unless the roots of fascism in our country are pulled up and exposed for everyone to see, they will continue to rot in our soil and produce yet another crop like the current one. The advantage is that in the Second World War, the side with the best minds won. Hitler didn't want fools like Einstein on his side; he wanted good soldiers like Goering and Goebbels and whoever the moron was that dreamed up the World Ice Theory (look that one up sometime - it's an absolute hoot on every level of astrophysics). The evangelical powers-that-be don't want people who think outside the box, either.

So you're definitely going to see further intellectual atrophy from that corner. Thing is, the best minds tend both to make money and develop good ideas. Taking these trends into account, I have to conclude that the political evangelical movement of our time has very probably passed the zenith of its vitality (if not its power) and is likely going to wither in the years and decades to come. The process will probably be greatly speeded if there are more people in the movement who are using it for their own personal gain; remember, every dollar misappropriated by a miscreant is a dollar not devoted to the cause.

Sorry, didn't mean to post a 3000-word ramble here, but the bottom line to me is that the conditions in Germany in the 1930s contained the seeds of the far right's destruction. Yes, it took a war. It is sad that the no-compromise folks always seem to require one. But the far right in our own country has far less popular support than in Depression Germany, and that support really doesn't seem to have much chance of rebounding. As a people, we should be addressing the influence of special interests in our democratic republic's governance (notably, the influence peddling to corporations and the pay-to-play that is going on) and worrying less about the evangelicals. I think they're almost done, if not financially, then at least from a standpoint of credibility. (If you doubt that, then consider whether someone like James Dobson would have ANY chance at winning a national election. Gary Bauer couldn't poll 3% even before the scandals of the past five years.)

Peace
PsA

[CTyankee]

28. Good post, but I have a question?

Why do the small town republicans who are rational in any other sense than the political, keep going along with the irrational fundies? I'm talking about generally prochoice mainline, main street repubs who cannot agree with taking science out of the schools. Why do they vote for the crazies over the Dems?

[klook]

34. Interesting post, PsA!

Very true that not all evangelical Christians are right-wing idiots. (Take Jimmy Carter, for example.)

And one thing many seem to miss when scratching their heads over the rise of the Religious Right is that these people actually, for real, fear for their immortal souls. And many of them believe that if they don't follow the doctrines of Pat Robertson, James Dobson, et al., they're going to Hell for eternity, where they'll have to shovel hot coals alongside Bill Clinton, Willie Horton, Barbra Streisand, and Gore Vidal.

[donkeyotay]

30. The Republican plan was to bankrupt the country

invade a sovereign nation, use a corrupt cabal of defense contractors to do it with, destroy the constitution, shred the social fabric, fatally wound the environment, make gas $3/gal., completely destroy the standing of the United States in the world, turn the country into a Darwinian survival roadshow, burden future generations... and whine about the Democrats not cleaning up after the elephants fast enough.

Corrupt
Incompetent
Immoral

Was that their plan or was it an accident?

[Erika]

4. The Bushbots had a plan and it didn't work

and its cast us into hell. May they some day pay for their stupidity.

[orleans]

5. hard to believe he's still doing THAT good. n/t

[Erika]

7. The Bushbots are hanging in there.

They don't care if they bury our country. They will be there for W.

[rodeodance]

14. the loyalty factor somes into play I assume.

[amitten]

9. The Dems do have good, logical plans. They have been

dogged by this sound bite that "the Democrats don't have a plan". Hell, it's like even they started to believe it for awhile. It's been like some kind of brainwashing.

But they do have good plans, and they need to stop buying into other's criticism. And so do we.

[Piscis Austrinus]

27. The difference between Dems and Pubs

They both use circular firing squads. But the Pubs are always facing outward and shooting everyone except themselves. (And they haven't figured out that the Christofascists in their party have formed a second firing squad inside the first one.)

Peace
PsA

[AX10]

29. True.

[BlueStater]

10. I always get a kick out of the Pubs whining about the Dems having no plans

What are they trying to say exactly? Whenever they use this paticular talking point, they're basically admitting to the American people that they're not up to the job.

Here's what I think little Tony is trying to say: "Uh, we're completely baffled on how to run the country but that's okay because the Democrats don't have any ideas either. Just stick with the incompetence you're familar with, okay?"

[DLnyc]

11. Repub plans seem to consist only of:

1) Helping their friends steal large sums of money (eg Haliburton no-bid contracts and subsequent fraud, Cheneys 'energy policy' which 'forgot' to charge for off-shore royalties and doubled the price of gas, preventing Medicare from bargaining down drug prices, and on and on and on)

2) Finding new ways to steal votes (electronic voting, registration suppression, wiping out New Orleans (at least the part of it that votes dem), gerrymandering, and on and on and on)

3) Finding emotional hot-button issues to prevent any debate on significant issues (gay marriage, Schiavo, flag-burning, school prayer, yada yada yada)

4) Racheting up the level of chaos and destruction around the world, so they can have something to protect us from (virtually every thing they do that involves another country (or this country, for that matter), my computer doesn't have enough storage capacity to list 1% of the examples . . .)

and

5) Saying the dems don't have a plan.

With plans like these, who needs enemas?

I would really like to hear reporters start asking repubs to give one damned example of a single constructive solution they have for a significant problem in the (reality-based) world.

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. That would be the bottom falling out of his slice of the Latino/Chicano

support.

All those small business owners who supported Bush for the tax cuts suddenly feel like Jewish accountants in Berlin, roundabout 1931. And they know that their brown skin will be held up as a rallying cry for the white GOP base anytime Bushie boy gets into trouble.

[jamesinca]

15. that was taken before he outed Valerie Plame

I am curious what his numbers are next week. I think with that newest revelation, even Free Republic will have him down to 70% of subscribers, and FOX have him down to 49%.

[CJCRANE]

16. Meet the New Low, Same as the Old Low.

How many times has 36% been a new low..?

[slestak]

36. Different polls

This is a new low in AP polling.

[rodeodance]

17. this is the top headline on the yahoo news board

[rodeodance]

18. "Strategists in both parties say" most difficult for Dems to take Congress

...Strategists in both parties say it would take an extraordinary set of circumstances for Democrats to seize control of Congress.

First, the elections would need to be nationalized. Democrats hope to do that with a burgeoning ethics scandal focused on relationships between GOP lobbyists and lawmakers.

Secondly, the public would need to be in a throw-the-bums-out mood. It's unclear whether that is the case, but 69 percent of Americans believes the nation is headed in the wrong direction — the largest percentage during the Bush presidency and up 13 points from a year ago.

Third, staunch GOP voters would need to stay home. Nobody can predict whether that will happen, but a growing number of Republicans disagree with their leaders in Washington about immigration, federal spending and other issues.

[dusty64]

19. If these last six

years don't fit that criteria I don't know what would.

[mzmolly]

20. Here's one of my favorite portions of this article:

There is more at stake than the careers of GOP lawmakers. A Democratic-led Congress could bury the last vestiges of Bush's legislative agenda and subject the administration to high-profile investigations of the Iraq war, the CIA leak case, warrantless eavesdropping and other matters.

:D

[momster]

21. What's really significant

is how far his rating on 'security/terrorism' has fallen. He's at 40% approval...lowest yet.

[tanyev]

22. When the only plan you have is to pillage and plunder the country

for the further enrichment of the already wealthy, I'd say a group with no plan is still a big improvement.

[Beetwasher]

24. Looks Like Chimpys PR Offensive is Just Offensive!

Or maybe it's a PU offensive.

[Fluffdaddy]

25. How low can you ...............GO ?

[LilyLibber]

31. I have a question...

From the article:

"We're in an exceptionally challenging electoral environment," said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a former GOP strategist. "We start off on a battlefield today that is tilted in their direction, and that's when you have to use the advantages you have."

Those include the presidential "bully pulpit" and the "structural, tactical advantages" built into the system, Cole said.

One of those advantages is a political map that is gerrymandered to put House incumbents in relatively safe districts, meaning Democrats have relatively few opportunities to pick up the 15 seats they need to gain control.

Emphasis mine.

So, here's my question - how is this gerrymandering crap OK? How can it be considered a legit advantage? Doesn't the fact that they're blatantly claiming the presidential "bully pulpit" and grossly unfair GERRYMANDERING as "tactical advantages" just stink of the utter dearth of ethics and good policymaking that would actually be advantages?

[mikelgb]

32. this story comes out every week

and it seems like they are always 36%

[cliss]

33. I think it's lower than that.

I believe Bush's approval ratings are in fact about half of 36%.

Like around 18%. That's more like it. They must surely know this in the White House. That's why they're scrambling, scurrying like little ants who just had a stick poked in their ant hill.

[BrklynLiberal]

35. New low? Hasn't it been at 36% for weeks now?

Why isn't it at 28% or 19%?

[windy252]

37. Because nothing will move that

35%

[Raine]

39. The 'dirty thirty'

both parties have them they're the hard-core peach pitt true believers. The 'dirty thirty' will never give in on their guy even if he killed and ate a baby in front of them. x(

[Dinger]

38. Wasn't There A CBS Poll That Had * At 33% A While Back? (nt)