New CNN poll - Draw a line down the middle of the country

Expect plenty of disagreement. Just keep it civil.
User avatar
Rspaight
Posts: 4386
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
Location: The Reality-Based Community
Contact:

New CNN poll - Draw a line down the middle of the country

Postby Rspaight » Mon Feb 02, 2004 4:34 pm

As worthless as polls are (Bush hasn't really started to campaign hard yet) this one was interesting:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/ ... index.html

Bush at an all-time-low 49 approval rating.

If-the-election-was-held-today:

Kerry 53
Bush 46

Bush 49
Edwards 48

Bush 50
Clark 47

Bush 52
Dean 45

Iraq worth it?

Yes 49
No 49

Bush lied about WMD?

No 54
Yes 43

Strong leader?

Bush 53
Kerry 39

More patriotic?

Bush 49
Kerry 39

Trust on Iraq?

Bush 50
Kerry 44

Can you say split down the middle? This is going to be a wild year.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

Ron
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:11 am
Location: Far Away From All You Fellas

Postby Ron » Wed Feb 04, 2004 2:31 pm

Ryan, these numbers are clear as mud. Kerry bests Bush if the election were held today, but Bush trounces Kerry on Strength of Leadership, Patriotism and Trust on Iraq. So why exactly would the majority of those polled vote for Kerry?
Dr. Ron :mrgreen:TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester

User avatar
Rspaight
Posts: 4386
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
Location: The Reality-Based Community
Contact:

Postby Rspaight » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:00 pm

The economy, I would think. Being perceived a macho, all-American warrior ain't worth much if people think you're bungling their livelihood.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

Ron
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:11 am
Location: Far Away From All You Fellas

Postby Ron » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:49 pm

I hope you're right. Otherwise the American voters would appear to be terribly confused. But as 49% rate Bush as Patriotic, I believe they *are* confused. Or ignorant.
Dr. Ron :mrgreen:TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester

User avatar
Rspaight
Posts: 4386
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
Location: The Reality-Based Community
Contact:

Postby Rspaight » Wed Feb 04, 2004 5:02 pm

They believe what the media tell them to believe. And a whole lot of them are just plain confused and/or ignorant. "Bush has *got* to be patriotic. He wears that American flag pin all the time."

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

Ron
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:11 am
Location: Far Away From All You Fellas

Postby Ron » Wed Feb 04, 2004 5:23 pm

I'm still confused. Has the media told a majority of Americans that the economy's not yet recovered and that Bush's tax cuts will bankrupt future generations [if those cuts don't create havoc with the world economy before then]? Do a majority of Americans feel the "pinch" of a weak economy? [I have no recent personal experience so I really don't know.]
Dr. Ron :mrgreen:TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester

User avatar
Rspaight
Posts: 4386
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
Location: The Reality-Based Community
Contact:

Postby Rspaight » Wed Feb 04, 2004 5:32 pm

That's a complicated question. The job market sucks, to put it mildly. You keep seeing headlines about how the indicators are going up, but it's not apparent down in the trenches yet. Bush hasn't addressed the jobs problem in any real way, and a lot of people have noticed that.

Bush has received something of a pass on the deficit as everyone's still in "whatever it takes to save us from another 9/11" mode and think the tax cuts are great. But that's beginning to fade, and the 2005 budget is pretty ugly. Once the monster debt starts to drive up interest rates, complacency could go away in a hurry. We'll see.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

Ron
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:11 am
Location: Far Away From All You Fellas

Postby Ron » Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:35 pm

Regarding the tax cuts, this is either off topic--or on target w/ respect to this conversation--but I still can't figure out why a majority of Americans would think those tax cuts were so great in the first place. The vast majority [70-80% or more?] got peanuts while the very rich got bundles. Have people somehow gotten smarter? And it was no secret then that the deficit would balloon.

And if you're right that it's the economy that's hurting Bush such that Kerry would win in an election held today, why does Bush whoop Kerry in the Leadership poll? The tax cut was Bush's idea--where's the Leadership in *that*? Misleading the public as to the threat Saddam posed so as to rush to war--where's the Leadership in *that*? Or Patriotism, for that matter? I really don't understand the thinking of the majority of Americans who think so.

If taking a hit to the wallet is the only thing that gets people to sit up and take notice, you've really got to wonder just how informed the majority of voters are. Or how much they really care.
Dr. Ron :mrgreen:TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester

User avatar
Rspaight
Posts: 4386
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
Location: The Reality-Based Community
Contact:

Postby Rspaight » Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:48 pm

The vast majority were quite happy with their peanuts and, as I said, the deficit hasn't really hit the mainstream consciousness yet. Oh, people are aware of it, but they won't care until it impacts them in some way. (And even then, most won't make the connection.) But people know there are no jobs out there and that what I think is hurting Bush.

Bush is a Great Leader because he's defending us against the evil terrorists. (And visits the troops in Baghdad on Thanksgiving.) All of his positives at this point are wrapped up in national security. (Unless you've drunk the conservative Kool-Aid, in which case everything he does is great and it's only the liberal media that are stupid enough to suggest otherwise.) 9/11 scared the *crap* out of the country in a fundamental way, and attacking *any* Arabs is exactly what we wanted. That's why people don't care if we find WMDs or not, and why half the people to this day believe Saddam was behind 9/11. They don't want to know the truth, they want to believe that we got the bastards that got us. Any other possibility is simply unthinkable to many, many Americans.

It's cognitive dissonance on a national scale. Most people think he's a Great Patriotic Leader because they can't stomach the alternative -- that not only did we get brutally attacked, but that Bush snuck a totally unrelated foreign policy-driven pre-emptive war in under the pretense that it was revenge for that attack.

Yes, Americans are in the main amazingly apolitical, but in this case they were, I think, *willfully* apolitical. But the cracks are beginning to show.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

Ron
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:11 am
Location: Far Away From All You Fellas

Postby Ron » Wed Feb 04, 2004 10:42 pm

Rspaight wrote:It's cognitive dissonance on a national scale. Most people think he's a Great Patriotic Leader because they can't stomach the alternative -- that not only did we get brutally attacked, but that Bush snuck a totally unrelated foreign policy-driven pre-emptive war in under the pretense that it was revenge for that attack.


I agree. I think it's high time Americans grew up.

Yes, Americans are in the main amazingly apolitical, but in this case they were, I think, *willfully* apolitical. But the cracks are beginning to show.


Willful *ignorance* is no friend to democracy. It's sort of like your grandmother, who's suffering from cancer, taking sugar pills in the hopes . . .
Dr. Ron :mrgreen:TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester

User avatar
Rspaight
Posts: 4386
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
Location: The Reality-Based Community
Contact:

Postby Rspaight » Fri Feb 06, 2004 1:30 pm

Here's a new AP poll, with findings even worse.

Bush job approval:
Approve 47
Disapprove 50

Re-elect Bush?
Definitely 37
Definitely Not 43
Maybe Not 18

All of this will change, of course.

Bolding by me:

AP poll notes sharp decline in support for Bush
Will Lester

Feb. 6, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's public support dropped sharply over the past month, especially among older voters, political independents and people in the Midwest, an Associated Press poll found.

And for the first time, more voters in this poll's two years of tracking the question said they would definitely vote against Bush than said they would definitely vote for him.

Bush's approval rating stood at 47 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll taken in early February, down from 56 percent approval just a month ago. Half, or 50 percent, said they disapproved in the latest poll.

The poll findings marked a difficult month for Bush, as public attention focused on the Democratic presidential primary and the Democrats' daily bashing of the incumbent. The survey came at a time when the public is nervous about the economy and the chief adviser to the administration on Iraqi weapons, David Kay, said last month "we were almost all wrong'' about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Bush's 47 percent approval rating is the same as his father's at this stage in his presidency 12 years ago before he lost to Bill Clinton.

Just under four in 10, 37 percent, said they would definitely vote to re-elect Bush as president, while 43 percent said they would definitely vote for someone else, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs. Another 18 percent said they would consider voting for someone else.

Other recent polls have shown Democratic front-runner John Kerry with an advantage over Bush in a head-to-head matchup.

A month ago, voters were more inclined to say they would re-elect Bush rather than definitely vote against him by a 41-33 margin.

"Right now, it's a one-sided campaign," said presidential scholar Charles Jones. "The out party is running their nominating process. It's hard for the incumbent to inject himself into the Democrats' campaign."

Bush will make an appearance on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press" program Sunday to talk about his agenda on the campaign against terror and the economy. Bush is likely to step up his campaign against the Democrats once they settle on a nominee.

"We have, from the beginning, recognized that this will be a marathon," said Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman. "We always anticipated a tough hard-fought contest."

Mehlman said an incumbent president is often at his most difficult point right before it is clear who the opponent will be. "When people focus more on the choice, numbers historically have changed," Mehlman said. Bush's approach of lower taxes, less lawsuits and less regulation will resonate with voters, he said.

The public perception of Bush and of the nation's economy slumped in the early February poll. Just over four in 10 said the country is headed in the right direction, while just over half said the country was on the wrong track. People were about evenly split on this question in early January.

The AP poll says people were more pessimistic about the economy, with consumer confidence dragged down by increased nervousness about the economy's current and future conditions.

Public approval of Bush's handling of the economy dipped to 44 percent, down from 53 percent in early January.

The public's mood took a positive turn after the capture of Saddam Hussein in mid December, and the outlook about the economy is now settling back to levels in November. The drop in Bush's political standing was more dramatic.

Democrats are now as intensely opposed to Bush as Republicans are intensely supporting him. By a 2-1 margin, political independents were more likely to say they would definitely vote against him than definitely support him.

"I think he's run the country into the ground economically, and he comes out with these crazy ideas like going to Mars and going to the moon," said Richard Bidlack, a 78-year-old retiree from Boonton, N.J., who says he voted for Bush in 2000. "I'm so upset at Bush, I'll vote for a chimpanzee before I vote for him."

Exit polls in the Democratic primaries have suggested considerable voter anger at Bush, among both Democrats and independents.

Bush still has the support of many Republicans, including 30-year-old Alicia Bleacher of Lancaster, Pa., a stay-at-home mother.

"We live in difficult times," she said. "He's doing the best he can. After 9-11, he took action immediately, we needed a president who would be decisive."

Bush saw a drop in support among most demographic and regional groups, but those were most pronounced among voters with a high school education or less, voters over age 65, political independents and voters in the Midwest.

Democratic strategist Jim Duffy said Democrats have gained ground because "now there is one focal point. It looks like John Kerry's going to be the opponent.''

The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults was taken Feb. 2-4 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

User avatar
Rspaight
Posts: 4386
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
Location: The Reality-Based Community
Contact:

Postby Rspaight » Fri Feb 06, 2004 1:32 pm

AP poll shows drop in consumer confidence
Jeannine Aversa

Feb. 6, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumer confidence took a hit over the past month as Americans were less enthusiastic about the economy's prospects and their own financial situations in the months ahead.

The AP-Ipsos consumer confidence index dropped to 91.7 this week, from a revised reading of 106.3 in early January, which had been the best showing since mid-May in 2002.

Consumers now are especially less confident about economic conditions over the next six months. A measure of consumers' expectations about such things as the economy's direction and their personal finances down the road showed the sharpest over-the-month decline of four sub-indexes. That "expectations" gauge dipped to 89.2 in early February, compared with 111.2 in early January.

A sub-index measuring consumers feelings about current economic conditions and another looking at attitudes toward the investment climate also dipped in February from January, while a sub-index tracking consumers' feelings about job security showed little movement.

"The job market will be the dominant force driving consumer confidence and spending going forward," said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Banc of America Capital Management.

Richard Yamarone, economist with Argus Research Corp., said the possibility that the Fed might boost borrowing costs later this year -- something economists have mixed opinions on -- might be a factor in the confidence dip in February. "That might be making people a little uneasy," he said.

Even with the decline in the overall consumer confidence index in February to 91.7, that was still significantly higher than the reading of 65.9 for the same month last year as the U.S. economy was still struggling to get back on firm footing and consumers were jittery about going to war with Iraq.

The drop in consumer confidence occurred at the same time that President Bush's approval rating was sinking to 47 percent, according to a separate AP-Ipsos poll taken this week. That was down from a 56 percent approval rating just a month ago.

The economy has been a major theme for Democratic contenders who want to take the White House from Bush this fall. Since Bush took office in January 2001, the economy has lost millions of jobs. Democrats blame that on what they believe is Bush's bad economic policies. The president's tax cuts, Democrats contend, haven't resulted in steady and significant job creation and have dug the nation's budget hole deeper.

The economy grew at a healthy 4 percent annual rate in the final quarter of 2003, a slowdown from the scorching 8.2 percent pace as the stimulative impact of the tax cuts faded. Economists believe the economy grew at a rate of more than 4 percent in the current quarter.

Reaser and other economists predict consumers _ the lifeblood of the economy -- will keep their pocketbooks and wallets sufficiently open in the months ahead to help keep the economic recovery moving ahead. "Actual consumer behavior at this point _ in terms of retail sales and other spending -- seems relatively positive," she said.

The AP-Ipsos confidence index is benchmarked to a 100 reading on January 2002, the month the index was started by Ipsos.

February's index reading was based on interviews with 1,000 adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The January reading of 106.3 was based on the results of a single survey taken early in the month. A previous report put the figure at 100.1 based on a compilation of two surveys, one taken in mid-December and the other in early January.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

Ron
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:11 am
Location: Far Away From All You Fellas

Postby Ron » Fri Feb 06, 2004 9:41 pm

So it's the economy that's hurting Bush. And if economy were stronger, Bush's numbers would be up--in spite of all his administration has done in the past three years? Very narrow/shallow thinking if you ask me.
Dr. Ron :mrgreen:TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester

User avatar
Grant
Posts: 486
Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2003 1:53 pm
Location: Arizona

Postby Grant » Fri Feb 06, 2004 10:11 pm

Ron wrote:
I agree. I think it's high time Americans grew up.
.


Don't count on it! :roll:

Ron
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:11 am
Location: Far Away From All You Fellas

Postby Ron » Fri Feb 13, 2004 6:46 pm

"It's the WMD, stupid."

From an article by Josh Marshall on why Bush's job approval rating dropped 10 points from Jan. 25 through Jan. 31 in TalkingPoints. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/index.html#shortbio

Falling ten points in a week is a precipitous drop -- and it seems to have been picked up in a number of polls, even if the rest of the surveys weren't able to pinpoint when it started quite as precisely as Annenberg.

To those who've been closely following the on-going weapons search and what's been happening on the ground in Iraq, Kay's announcement was only news at the level of theatrics -- the historical value of the official statement of what's been obvious for many months.

I don't think most people following this story figured it would have nearly so dramatic an effect as the Annenberg study indicates. I certainly didn't. Indeed, I focused on the parts of Kay's comments and testimony which struck me as attempting to exonerate the administration.

But this may be a case in which close attention to the news helped create a real blind spot. As we've noted here many times the White House has gone to great lengths to avoid publicly acknowledging the reality that we were totally wrong about the weapons.

The plan was always to say that the search continued and to dangle hints that anyone who doubted that Saddam had weapons might end up looking very foolish indeed when the weapons turned up. Even now high White House officials tell reporters off the record that they will continue to say that the search is still on-going so as to avoid putting these uncomfortable words in the president's mouth.

This is not only amazingly cynical (a free willingness to continue deceiving the public just as they did during the run-up to the war). It is, or was, it seems extremely effective.

By not coming clean and resting on the public's desire to trust the president, the White House was able to stave off the political impact of the collapse of the central argument for going to war. In that context, Kay's statements were a very big deal indeed, and the public reaction makes all the sense in the world.

For some time now, it's been conventional wisdom that most voters weren't overly troubled by the failure to find any weapons in the country, especially so long as other aspects of the war were going at least tolerably well. That assumption may have been very wrong.
Dr. Ron :mrgreen:TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester