CBS News: New Poll!!!! Bad for Bush and a huh?

[Cush]

CBS/NY Times Poll

51% Approval Rating

44% Approval on Foreign Policy

50% Say he can't handle an international Crisis

56% have no confidence is handling on the economy

56% Say We're on the wrong track

Bush gets 44% vs 44% For an unnamed Dem

Yet more people think he will be re-elected???? Huh???

[Cush]

1. ABC on the LEak

There is a battle to keep the GOP inline on this. The RNC has sent a fact sheet to the GOP on how to attack Wilson and the Dems

Terry Moran mentions the Rove/Ashcroft Link

[FDRLincoln]

5. a fact sheet??? they still don't get it.

These clowns at the RNC still don't get it. A FACT SHEET??? Attacking Wilson and the Dems?

They aren't up against the Dems. This isn't your standard political scandal. THIS IS ABOUT POTENTIAL TREASON. THIS IS ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY. THEY ARE GOING UP AGAINST THE CIA!!!!! Do they think the CIA is going to back down because of a fact sheet? If anything, they will intensify their behind-the-scenes fight, while continuing to push things outwardly. Watch more and more "former CIA agents" coming forward to be interviewed about how bad the Plame Affair hurt things.

The CIA and their allies at State are not going to be intimidated by political spin and RNC talking points.

We are witnessing the first stages of the self-destruction of the Republican Party.

[Dean-my-man]

2. Probably because

it is a YEAR away from the next election. In Reagan's third year, polls showed him losing. In Bush I's third year, polls showed him winning. I Clinton's third year, polls showed him losing.

Enough said. The election is not today. These polls are meaningless. Relatively speaking, it is unusual for a President to be over 50% in any poll in his third year.

[dolstein]

3. Nothing surprising about people thinking he'll get reelected

He's raising hundreds of millions of dollars. The Democrats still appear to be in disarray.

Don't forget -- Gray Davis was very unpopular in 2002 and still managed to get reelected. As bad as Bush is, one can easily imagine a majority of people thinking that the Democratic alternative is worse. Ok, as a Democrat it may be hard to imagine this, but roughly two-thirds of the electorate aren't Democrats.

[displacedvermoter]

12. What is your definition of "appear[ing] to be in disarray"?

Dean just raised nearly $15 million, Clark is showing good early traction in polls in diverse places like NY and Arizona, Dem candidates are taking a lead in putting out the message about the failures in Iraq and the economy, and have made strong calls about the Wilson leaks, and polls are showing that as many as half a dozen Dem candidates (Dean, Gephardt, Clark, Kerry, Edwards and your guy) are ahead or competitive with Shrub.

Now, granted, these are early days. But what constitutes the disarray you see? The fact that the candidates are sniping at each other? Isn't that what the process is about?

Roughly two-thirds of the electorate are not Democrats, but narly everybody knows someone who has lost a job, who is having troubles making payments on mortgages and credit card payments (an d winter hasn't come yet, but watch what heating costs are going to be), and lots of people know someone who has died or been wounded or has been stuck in Iraq or Afghanistan for months and months.

If either of the two parties seems in disarray, it would seem to be the ones who have screwed the economy, mangled foreign relations, and brought death and destruction in the name of corporatism.

[w4rma]

19. I think dolstein supports ABD (anybody but Dean)

So, you'll need to talk about candidates who aren't Dean who aren't in disarray (of which there appear to be none, including Clark's amateurish campaign).

[gasperc]

20. dissarray, sounds like a GOP campaingn strategy

Hussein's gone, Hussein's gone, Hussein's gone the Democrats are in disarry. That'll be the GOP's strategy all next year.

[alphafemale]

4. It's because of the continued media shrilling for a "Popular President"

People are coming out of the fog, enough that they are starting to see the light of day, but not yet enough that they can see all of the others around them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Well said

that is where you and I come in, we need to talk to
our neighboors and all that

[alphafemale]

16. As I heard Aaron Mcgruder say (Boondocks)

He made a reference to the "Matrix," and said he was running around unplugging people as fast as he could.

[David Zephyr]

22. Aaron McGruder Rules!

http://www.boondocks.net/

[Cha]

7. Right! they will be saying bush "is a popular president(sic)

even when he's tanked in the toilet.

[alphafemale]

17. And they also saying be saying Dean is peaking too soon....

LOL!

You've gotta' Believe!

[qwertyMike]

13. Popular President

This scares me. Bush is 'popular' in that guy next door way, kinda dumb, appearing to do the Right Thing, failed a lot but dusted hmself off, bit stoopid like US. Reagan had that too, Clinton, LBJ to some extent and JFK too.
Reagan was a buffoon, but he had one incredible quality - He was eminently electable. The guy couldn't lose.
When the big money saw that in California they went right behind him.
(Kinda like that buffoon in Germany in the 30's)

Which of the TEN has that quality? Voter charisma.

Scares me.

[alphafemale]

18. Welcome to DU keyboard Mike!

I think you fit right in here!
:hi:

[LoneStarLiberal]

8. People, Even Anti-Bush People, Are Really Jaded

More people think he will be re-elected (or as we know is correct, elected) because so many people are jaded about our political system. Even people who dislike him think he will win in 2004 because he's got the system under his thumb.

People are so jaded right now that I wouldn't be surprised if nothing came of the assasination of a Democratic candidate.

Many people, even those who dislike Bush greatly, are just too jaded to think he can be beat.

And that's what we have to work on.

[Dean-my-man]

10. To repeat...

We are a YEAR away from the next election. In Reagan's third year, polls showed him losing. In Bush I's third year, polls showed him winning. I Clinton's third year, polls showed him losing.

Enough said. The election is not today. These polls are meaningless. Relatively speaking, it is unusual for a President to be over 50% in any poll in his third year.

[DemMother]

14. Let;'s not repeat their spin

Check out the story in the L.A. Times today.  It's not what
you have--it's where you're going, and Bush is going down.

[i]"GOP strategists were quick to point out that other
presidents with approval ratings even lower than Bush's during
their third year — including Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton —
easily won reelection.

But the approval ratings for Reagan and Clinton were rising
around this point in their presidencies. In the last 50 years,
the only presidents whose approval ratings were unambiguously
falling in Gallup surveys as they entered their election year
were Gerald R. Ford and George H. W. Bush, the president's
father. Both were defeated.

"There is plenty of time still for [the younger Bush] to
recover," said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at
Emory University in Atlanta. "But the trend is more
worrisome for him at this point than where he is in absolute
terms." [i]

http:\\www.latimes.com

Free registration required

[fizzana]

9. It's the direction he's heading in rather than the absolute numbers

that are significant. The prospects are not looking good for either the economy or the situation in Iraq improving over the next 6 months.

Josh Marshall recently had a great analogy for this. He compared the Bush administration to a corporation cooking the books. Right now they're still managing to maintain the facade that everyting is elatively okay but once the shit hits the fan their support will cave in. All it needs is a little push and that could come from any number of places.

[knight_of_the_star]

11. Tell me when he hits 30%

When he gets under 40, then we're in business. It would take a miracle to save him if his approval rating sank THAT low.

[AndyTiedye]

15. Expecting Another Stolen Election

> Yet more people think he will be re-elected???? Huh???

because they have also heard about black-box voting now,
so they expect the BFEE will steal the election.

[stickdog]

21. The critical number is DISAPPROVAL.

And the trend ain't looking good for Chimpy.

[Woodstock]

23. We have been keeping track at work - one more won't vote for Bush

None of those who didn't vote for him last time want to vote for him this time (FAR from it.)

But we've got 5 who voted for him last time who won't next time. Just added another today. One said he likes Dean. One said he likes Clark. One said he likes Kerry. One said he can't bring himself to vote Democratic but will stay home or vote Libertarian (he's a Libertarian.) Not sure what the new guy is thinking, but the word is he's on the outs with Bush.

Sure, there are the ditto heads who are still blindly following orders from the collective. But ones who actually bother to educate themselves are digging up the shrub.