Nixon, Carter, Truman, Bush and Bush

By: Josh
Published On: 5/8/2006 5:17:34 PM

USA Today's new poll has Mr. Bush at yet another new record low 31% approval rating, with 65% disapproval.  His disapproval ties the second highest ever and is one shy of Nixon's 66% the week before he resigned. (props to Corey for that point)

That's an astounding feat.  Only Nixon, Truman, Carter and the elder Bush ever registered lower poll numbers, and only Truman ever recovered from being that low.

Truman twice sank into the low 30s and then rose into the 60s, but the third time his rating fell, it stayed below 40% as well.

"Historically it's been pretty devastating to presidents at this level," Franklin says. Even Republican members of Congress are "now so worried about their electoral fortunes in November that he has less leverage with them than he normally would with his own party controlling Congress."


Now it's not just the left and center that are abandoning the failed and embattled, Mr. Bush.  The right is starting to wake up to his incompetence as well:

Bush's fall is being fueled by erosion among support from conservatives and Republicans. In the poll, 52% of conservatives and 68% of Republicans approved of the job he is doing. Both are record lows among those groups.

Moderates gave him an approval rating of 28%, liberals of 7%

Reacting to another miserable poll for Bush, Lance Tarrance, one of the chief architects of the Republicans' "Southern Strategy", yesterday was quoted in the Washington Post as saying "This Administration may be over."

Not a minute too soon.

Now the Democrats have to win in November and begin the long hard task of rebuilding after the unprecedented devistation caused by only six years conservative hegemony.  For a sense of what Democrats will do when they take over the House, the Washington Post gave a nice summary [here].

Comments



Disapproval (Corey - 5/8/2006 5:28:50 PM)
His disapproval ties the second highest ever and is one shy of Nixon's 66% the week before he resigned.

  -Jim Webb for Senate



Damn you're good! (Josh - 5/8/2006 5:31:38 PM)
I'm glad you're on our side.  ;)


I have a question... (uva08 - 5/8/2006 6:15:59 PM)
Has the bottom fallen out?  Is there really any chance Bush can bounce back from this?  If he were to take up the immigration debat, press for tighter boarders and denounce amnesty I have a feeling his numbers would rise back into upper 30s or lower fourties but I dont see that happening.  I honestly dont understand how any Republican candidate in 2008 could pull off a victory after eight years of Bush.  Even McCain would have a hard time because it would be all but too easy to paint him up as a Washington insider with close ties to the Bush administration.  Despite the "maverick" image McCain projects I have a feeling that the evidence will show that he's much more partisan than people think. 


It's only going to get worse for Republicans, and better for Democrats (Josh - 5/8/2006 8:00:52 PM)
We're likely to see a Karl Rove indicted fairly soon, and that won't be the end of the Valerie Plame scandal, it only goes up from there.  On top of that this crazy hooker gate seems to be killing the careers of multiple CIA administrators from Goss down.  Then there's unconstitutional wiretapping, Katrina, mounting proof that Bush and Abramoff conspired to protect sweatshops, and the general failure of the Administration to get its act together post 9/11 to actually protect the country.

There really is no limit to the depths to which republicans can sink in the eyes of the American public.

What hasn't happened, but what seems to be coalescing now is a unified voice of Democrats.  Pelosi came out with a very strong agenda for Democrats to pursue after the November election if the House turns over.  Meanwhile, strong crossover candidates like Jim Webb are making possible something almost inconceiveable just a few months ago:  there are the makings of a New Enduringe Majority in
Washington and across the country, based on what makes America great. 

Activists have had this very strong anti-Bush feeling for a long time, but that won't be enough to get mainstream middle-of-the-road voters to support Democrats in election after election, it didn't work in 2004.  What can happen, however, is a powerful representation of the Values, Issues, and Policies that Americans truly care about.  Jim Webb's platform has the potential of uniting the vast majority of Americans for the good of all.  There are other leaders in the Democratic party capable of pulling this all together, but Webb is on the leading edge.  He's not on the edge of the early action, the early frustration, the early  anger.  No, Jim Webb is the leading edge of a new majority that can truly represent the needs of regular American families, protect the living Constitution, and effectively govern in the interest of the have nots as well as the haves.

Of course, the Bush legacy will be remembered as the equivalent of a bedtime story we all tell our kids:  you share that ball or else you might turn out like George Bush.  But the Republican implosion isn't enough, a new American Progressivism from within the Democratic party will have to fulfill the deeper promise of the American Dream.  Jim Webb's Senate campaign vs. Harris Miller highlights the new ethic of the Democratic party vs. the old failed party that allowed conservatism to nearly destroy us.  Webb vs. Allen will the the life or death struggle for the heart of the nation: will we continue to look back in nostalgia on a perfect past that never existed while a new aristocracy shortens the lifespan of the American republic by centuries, or will we look to a future with our eyes wide open, to pragmatic solution based on the best principles America has to offer.



Question (thegools - 5/8/2006 9:16:11 PM)
And what happens to all that if Webb loses?

(I think Webb can win, but this race will be anything but easy.  The money is far from even and Allen is a fire-in-the-belly sort of politician.)



Webb is the first of many (Josh - 5/8/2006 9:55:47 PM)
Webb will defeat Allen.  He's charting new territory, but he's merely the first crossover.  The early movers in this have been building and building for years. Regardless of the outcome, where he leads many others will follow.


The Decider. (Bubby - 5/8/2006 9:23:54 PM)
You know, America has a lottery mentality. We think we can party till we're 40, fail in business after business, and then somehow wind up as president of the United States.

Okay, bad example.

Bill Maher