T1B

Poll: Bush, GOP hit new lows in public opinion
‘These numbers are scary,’ GOP pollster says as Democrats eye opportunity
Updated: 9:45 a.m. ET April 7, 2006
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.”

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.

In the past two congressional elections, Republicans gained seats on the strength of Bush’s popularity and a perception among voters that the GOP was stronger on national security than Democrats.

Those advantages are gone, according to a survey of 1,003 adults conducted this week for The Associated Press by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

• 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.
• Only 40 percent of the public approves of Bush’s performance on foreign policy and the war on terror, another low-water mark for his presidency. That’s down 9 points from a year ago. Just before the 2002 election, 64 percent of registered voters backed Bush on terror and foreign policy.
• Just 35 percent of the public approves of Bush’s handling of Iraq, his lowest in AP-Ipsos polling.

“He’s in over his head,” said Diane Heller, 65, a Pleasant Valley, N.Y., real estate broker and independent voter.

Troubled Congress
As bad as Bush’s numbers may be, Congress’ are worse.


Just 30 percent of the public approves of the GOP-led Congress’ job performance, and Republicans seem to be shouldering the blame.

By a 49-33 margin, the public favors Democrats over Republicans when asked which party should control Congress.

That 16-point Democratic advantage is the largest the party has enjoyed in AP-Ipsos polling.

On an issue the GOP has dominated for decades, Republicans are now locked in a tie with Democrats — 41 percent each — on the question of which party people trust to protect the country. Democrats made their biggest national security gains among young men, according to the AP-Ipsos poll, which had a 3 percentage point margin of error.

The public gives Democrats a slight edge on what party would best handle Iraq, a reversal from Election Day 2004.

“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.

“I think we will win the Congress,” Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean said, breaking the unwritten rule against raising expectations.

“Everything is moving in our direction. If it keeps moving in our direction, it’s very reasonable to say there will be a Democratic Senate and House,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

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.

Bush’s approval rating is down 12 points among Republicans since a year ago. Six-in-10 Republicans said they disapproved of the GOP-led Congress.

“I’d just as soon they shut (Congress) down for a few years,” said Robert Hirsch, 72, a Republican-leaning voter in Chicago. “All they do is keep passing laws and figuring out ways to spend our money.”

ChargerMike wrote:“I’d just as soon they shut (Congress) down for a few years,” said Robert Hirsch, 72, a Republican-leaning voter in Chicago. “All they do is keep passing laws and figuring out ways to spend our money.”


...Hirsch may be old, but he "get's it".

Martyred wrote:

ChargerMike wrote:“I’d just as soon they shut (Congress) down for a few years,” said Robert Hirsch, 72, a Republican-leaning voter in Chicago. “All they do is keep passing laws and figuring out ways to spend our money.”


...Hirsch may be old, but he "get's it".

He "gets" shutting down a branch of the government that's controlled by the GOP?

tough love wrote:If his numbers get any lower, Bush will have to learn fractions - Connan

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

mothster wrote:the economy is not in dire straits.......thats the ony thing keeping dubya afloat

Bush job rating at new low, poll finds
60 percent disapprove of president’s performance
By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane

Updated: 10:01 p.m. ET April 10, 2006
Political reversals at home and continued bad news from Iraq have dragged President Bush's standing with the public to a new low, at the same time that Republican fortunes on Capitol Hill also are deteriorating, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey found that 38 percent of the public approve of the job Bush is doing, down three percentage points in the past month and his worst showing in Post-ABC polling since he became president. Sixty percent disapprove of his performance.

With less than seven months remaining before the midterm elections, Bush's political troubles already appear to be casting a long shadow over them. Barely a third of registered voters, 35 percent, approve of the way the Republican-held Congress is doing its job -- the lowest level of support in nine years.

The negative judgments about the president and the congressional majority reflect the breadth of the GOP's difficulties and suggest that problems of each may be mutually reinforcing. Although the numbers do not represent a precipitous decline over recent surveys, the fact that they have stayed at low levels over recent months indicates the GOP is confronting some fundamental obstacles with public opinion rather than a patch of bad luck.

A majority of registered voters, 55 percent, say they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate in their House district, while 40 percent support the Republican candidate. That is the largest share of the electorate favoring Democrats in Post-ABC polls since the mid-1980s.

This grim news for the GOP is offset somewhat by the finding that 59 percent of voters still say they approve of their own representative. But even these numbers are weaker than in recent off-year election cycles and identical to support of congressional incumbents in June 1994 -- five months before Democrats lost control of Congress to Republicans.

Evenly divided on only one issue
As Bush and the Republicans falter, Democrats have emerged as the party most Americans trust to deal with such issues as Iraq, the economy and health care. By 49 to 42 percent, Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans to do a better job of handling Iraq.

Democrats also hold a six-percentage-point advantage over the GOP (49 percent to 43 percent) as the party most trusted to handle the economy. Their lead swells to double digits on such as issues as immigration (12 points), prescription drug benefits for the elderly (28 points), health care (32 points) and dealing with corruption in Washington (25 points).

The public divides evenly on only one issue: terrorism, with 46 percent expressing more confidence in the Democrats and 45 percent trusting Republicans on a top voting concern that the GOP counts on dominating.

But there is plenty of time left before Election Day for Republicans to take back ground they have lost to Democrats -- or for Democrats to solidify their recent gains. In the past year, public attitudes toward Bush and the Republicans have been driven by the news. Bush's popularity rebounded at the end of last year in response to the democratic elections in Iraq and renewed optimism about the economy at home -- only to stumble as the deadly insurgency continued and scandals in Congress and the White House drove down perceptions of the president and his party.

A total of 1,027 randomly selected adults were interviewed April 6 to 9 for this survey. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for the overall results.

Bush's job approval rating has remained below 50 percent for nearly a year. Perhaps more ominous for the president, 47 percent in the latest poll say they "strongly" disapprove of Bush's handling of the presidency -- more than double the 20 percent who strongly approve. It marked the second straight month that the proportion of Americans intensely critical of the president was larger than his overall job approval rating. In comparison, the percentage who strongly disapproved of President Bill Clinton on that measure never exceeded 33 percent in Post-ABC News polls.

The public is even more critical of Bush's performance in specific areas. On six of seven key issues, fewer than half of the respondents approve of the job Bush is doing, while majorities express dissatisfaction with him on Iraq (62 percent), health care (62 percent) and immigration (61 percent).

Concern on gas prices
Four in 10 -- 40 percent -- say Bush is doing a good job with the economy, down eight percentage points in a month. One reason for the drop may be the recent sharp increase in fuel costs. Fewer than one in four approve of his handling of gasoline prices, virtually the same as last summer when gas prices topped $3 a gallon. Overall, 44 percent said the increases are causing "serious hardship" in their family, up significantly from August.

Half of the public now disapproves of the way Bush is handling the fight against terrorism, an issue on which majorities of Americans had typically given him high marks until last year.

The depth of public dissatisfaction with Bush and the highly partisan nature of the criticism are underscored by public attitudes toward efforts by some in Congress to censure him or impeach him for his actions as president.

Democratic and Republican congressional leaders view both scenarios as remote possibilities. Still, more than four in 10 Americans -- 45 percent -- favor censuring or formally reprimanding Bush for authorizing wiretaps of telephone calls and e-mails of terrorism suspects without court permission. Two-thirds of Democrats and half of all independents, but only one in six Republicans, support censuring Bush, the poll found.

Last month, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) introduced a resolution in the Senate to censure Bush. A majority of Americans, 56 percent, said his move was driven more by politics than by principle.

Calls to impeach Bush are not resonating beyond Democratic partisans. One-third of Americans, including a majority of Democrats (55 percent), favor impeaching Bush and removing him from office. But more than nine in 10 Republicans and two-thirds of independents oppose impeachment.

The ongoing bloodshed and political chaos in Iraq continues to drag down support for the war, the survey found. Barely four in 10 -- 41 percent -- say the war was worth fighting, down five percentage points since December. Although more than half of Americans think troop levels in Iraq should be decreased, only 15 percent are calling for an immediate withdrawal, a figure that has not varied much over the past year.

mvscal wrote:Your polling has been shit for the last six years if not longer.

We won't have long to wait, though. You libs are going to fall drastically short of your masturbatory fantasies for success in the midterms.

You libs are going to fall drastically short of your masturbatory fantasies for success in the midterms.

mvscal wrote:A Democrat offering lectures in "facing reality"?!?!?



What the fuck do you idiots know about reality?

By whom? Democrats?

Is pandering to illegal aliens "what's best for the country"?

WASHINGTON — The top Republicans of the House and Senate say they do not want to make unlawful presence in the United States by illegal immigrants a felony, despite what they described as efforts by Democrats to do just that.

"It remains our intent to produce a strong border security bill that will not make unlawful presence in the United States a felony," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, of Illinois, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, of Tennessee, said in a statement released late Tuesday.

recruiting ineligible voters...

mvscal wrote:Who said Saddam had connections to the 9/11 attack?

These are the kind of childish lies that will come back to kick you in the ass once again.

from the March 14, 2003 edition

The impact of Bush linking 9/11 and Iraq

American attitudes about a connection have changed, firming up the case for war.

By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11.
Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was "personally involved" in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago.

Sources knowledgeable about US intelligence say there is no evidence that Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks, nor that he has been or is currently aiding Al Qaeda. Yet the White House appears to be encouraging this false impression, as it seeks to maintain American support for a possible war against Iraq and demonstrate seriousness of purpose to Hussein's regime.

"The administration has succeeded in creating a sense that there is some connection [between Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein]," says Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.

The numbers

Polling data show that right after Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans were asked open-ended questions about who was behind the attacks, only 3 percent mentioned Iraq or Hussein. But by January of this year, attitudes had been transformed. In a Knight Ridder poll, 44 percent of Americans reported that either "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. The answer is zero.

According to Mr. Kull of PIPA, there is a strong correlation between those who see the Sept. 11-Iraq connection and those who support going to war.

In Selma, Ala., firefighter Thomas Wilson supports going to war with Iraq, and brings up Sept. 11 himself, saying we don't know who's already here in the US waiting to attack. When asked what that has to do with Iraq, he replies: "They're all in it together - all of them hate this country." The reason: "prosperity."

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden himself recently encouraged the perception of a link, when he encouraged attacks on the US in response to a US war against Iraq. But, terror experts note, common animosity toward the United States does not make Hussein and Mr. bin Laden allies.

Hussein, a secularist, and bin Laden, a Muslim fundamentalist, are known to despise each other. Bin Laden's stated sympathies are always toward the Iraqi people, not the regime.

This is not to say that Hussein has no link to terrorists. Over the years, terrorist leader Abu Nidal - who died in Baghdad last year - used Iraq as a sometime base. Terrorism experts also don't rule out that some Al Qaeda fighters have slipped into Iraqi territory.

The point, says Eric Larson, a senior policy analyst at RAND who specializes in public opinion and war, is that the US public understands what Hussein is all about - which includes his invasion of two countries and the use of biological and chemical agents. "He's expressed interest - and done more than that - in trying to develop a nuclear capability," says Mr. Larson. "In general, the public is rattled about this.... There's a jumble of attitudes in many Americans' minds, which fit together as a mosaic that [creates] a basic predisposition for military action against Saddam."

Future fallout

In the end, will it matter if some Americans have meshed together Sept. 11 and Iraq? If the US and its allies go to war against Iraq, and it goes well, then the Bush administration is likely not to face questions about the way it sold the war. But if war and its aftermath go badly, then the administration could be under fire.

"Going to war with improper public understanding is risky," says Richard Parker, a former US ambassador to several Mideast countries. "If it's a failure, and we get bogged down, this is one of the accusations that [Bush] will have to face when it's all over."

Antiwar activist Daniel Ellsberg says it's important to understand why public opinion appears to be playing out differently in the US and Europe. In fact, both peoples express a desire to work through the UN. But the citizens get different messages from their leaders. "Americans have been told by their president [that Hussein is] a threat to security, and so they believe that," says Mr. Ellsberg. "It's rather amazing, in light of that, that so many Americans do want this to be authorized by the UN. After all, the president keeps saying we don't have to ask the UN for permission to defend ourselves."

• Staff writers Liz Marlantes and Faye Bowers contributed to this report.

mvscal wrote:

Terry in Crapchester wrote:

mvscal wrote:Who said Saddam had connections to the 9/11 attack?

These are the kind of childish lies that will come back to kick you in the ass once again.

Once in awhile, you might actually want to take your head out of W's rectum.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html

OK.

Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president.

What part of that are you struggling to comprehend?

The administration has succeeded in creating a sense that there is some connection [between Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein

"It remains our intent to produce a strong border security bill that will not make unlawful presence in the United States a felony,"

He clearly implied in his editorial that he was sent to Africa by Cheney's office, dumbfuck.

nteresting that you're so clearly able to "read between the lines" here......but won't when it comest to anything Bush......

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.

It does NOT state that Saddam was responsible for the attack.

It is an expression of concern for the future based on Saddam's past behavior and continuing intrasigence.

mvscal wrote:

Terry in Crapchester wrote:Ahhh, so Bush wasn't implying that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11,

That's kinda tough to do when you explicitly state that he wasn't. You don't seem to have a very firm grip on the English language.

That's some "wicked spelling smack" you're laying down there, gimp.

I guess it's the best you can do. Keep sluggin' little fella.

Felix wrote:

That's some "wicked spelling smack" you're laying down there, gimp.

I guess it's the best you can do. Keep sluggin' little fella.

Well, if you'd quit trying to show everybody how "smart" you are by rolling out $30 words, you wouldn't have that problem......next time use "opposition" and you'll lessen your chances of spelling it wrong.....