Can Bush Approval Ratings be Trusted?
According to a new survey by the Opinion Research Corp. sponsored by CNN, 58% of respondents disapprove of the way President Bush is handling his job. A clear majority of 56% disapprove of his handling of the war in Iraq. So far, blah, blah, blah. Then comes this result: 53% say that the war with Iraq has made the US is less safe from terrorism. What?! We have not been attacked since 9/11. So how are we less safe? And just to show the respondents are totally out of touch with reality, people were asked about gas prices. 61% said the high prices were due to unethical behavior of those involved in the production and distribution of gasoline, while only 26% said the prices were due to supply and demand. But when the question specifically asks whether the high prices were due to unethical behavior, supply and demand, or neither, isn’t that leading the question?
I was unable to find the breakdown of how these respondents classified themselves since every reliable survey wants to prove their data is correct. But considering that only 26% considered the high price of gas to be related to supply and demand, I question the respondents’ education level. How could anyone in their right mind think the oil companies would cut their own throat by artificially escalating gas prices to their present level? Come on! So instead of believing people are stupid, we must assume the validity of the poll results.
So if we can’t believe the poll results on the high price of gas, how can we believe the polls on the President’s approval ratings?
One of the reasons I wonder about this poll is Fox News poll results which show President Bush’s job approval numbers are on the rebound. The poll which was conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corporation does not weigh their polls by party identification by their own admission. There was a huge difference between the CNN and Fox polls on why George Bush has low approval numbers. CNN lists the reasons for disapproval as:
MOSTLY because of rising gas prices 13%
MOSTLY because of the war in Iraq or 56%
MOSTLY because of other issues 26%
No opinion 5%
The Fox News poll could not be more different.
What issues do Americans say will be most important to their vote for Congress? Right now, there isn’t one issue that clearly outdistances the others. The economy (16 percent) and gas prices (15 percent) edge out Iraq (13 percent), immigration (12 percent), health care (11 percent), and terrorism (10 percent). The two issues that fail to make it into the double-digits are ethics in Washington (9 percent) and Social Security (7 percent).
Among Democrats, the economy (23 percent) outranks Iraq (16 percent) and gas prices (15 percent). For Republicans, the top issues are terrorism (16 percent), gas prices (15 percent) and immigration (15 percent).
Wouldn’t you know it, the economy is tops among Democrats. This is one of the best economies with the lowest unemployment this country has ever had and yet the Democrats whine about the poor state of the nation. It goes to show that the Democrats answer to everything is to whine and then blame someone else. They are bankrupt of ideas and they have no solutions. I for one am sick of their crying.
The rest of the questions and their answers can be found here. The respondents’ answers to whose fault are the high gas prices and what they are willing to do about them is very interesting.
Both polls show the President has some communication problems. After 9/11 President Bush went after the terrorists in Afghanistan and promised to go after the terrorists and the countries who harbored them. Iraq was a next logical step considering Saddam Hussein’s affinity with WMDs and his known affiliation with terrorists. Over the next few months, as the President draws down the American forces in the Middle East, he needs to inform the people over and over again why we sent troops to Iraq. President Bush also needs to talk up the economy just like Bill Clinton did. He needs to push the great news of the growing economy. Except for the high gas prices, everything is going very well. The President’s tax relief stimulated an economy bound for recession. Bush needs to remind the American people of what he did for this country: protected this nation from terror attack since Sept. 11th, pulled the country out of a Clinton recession, and provided jobs on an unprecedented scale.
If President Bush reminds the American people of what he has accomplished, the mid-term election of 2006 may well go the way of 2002 and 2004. Bush may also go down in history as one of our greatest presidents, if he can rally the country around him as he did after the terrorist attacks. The only way he can rally the nation around him is to inform the American people of what he has accomplished.
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