Just When You Thought The Poll Numbers Couldn’t Get Any Worse…

by John Hawkins | November 17, 2005 12:36 pm

You always have to take the numbers from any one poll with a grain of salt, but if these numbers[1] in the latest Harris poll are even close to correct, the American people are basically saying that they hate just about everybody and everything in Washington…well, except for maybe Condi Rice =D.

Just take a look at this:

“Bush’s current job approval rating stands at 34%, compared with a positive rating of 88% soon after 9/11, 50% at this time last year, and 40% in August.

And he’s not alone. Cabinet members, Congressional leaders and both parties in Congress have also seen their ratings slip, with Democrats seeing one of the biggest dips in approval, the telephone poll of 1,011 U.S. adults shows.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s approval ratings slipped to 30% this month from 35% in August, while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s approval ratings dropped to 34% from 40% and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s approval ratings fell to 52% from 57%, according to the poll.

At the same time, only a quarter of Americans polled give Democrats a positive rating in the latest poll, compared with 31% in August, while Republicans’ approval ratings fell to 27% from 32%.

…In the most recent poll, Americans were also asked to name the two most important issues that the U.S. government needs to address. When considering the most important issues, 34% of those polled say the war is most important, 13% said the economy and 13% said Iraq. Other issues mentioned were health care (11%), education (10%) and taxes (9%).”

Some points worth noting:

— Everyone focuses on Bush’s approval rating, but the American people like him better than Congress, and interestingly enough, the Republicans in Congress better than the Democrats.

— Admittedly, an anti-incumbent mood favors the Democrats more than Republicans, simply because there are more Republicans in office. But, it’s hard to see how the Democrats are going to be able to take much advantage of that when people like them even less than Republicans.

— Also, it seems to be the American people are being way too pessimistic all around. If the war on terrorism is the most important, well, it’s going fairly well despite the bumbling and incompetence we’ve seen in Congress as of late. There haven’t been any more 9/11’s, fifty million people have been freed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda is significantly weaker than they were before the war started, etc., etc. That should be a positive.

As far as the economy goes, it has been strong for 2 full years now. Jobs are being created, the economy is growing, and gas prices are even plummeting (Wonder if there will be a psychological impact when gas drops below $2.00 again?)

Then there’s Iraq where we just had a successful election and have another one scheduled for December. Saddam is being tried, we will likely have a lot of troops coming home next year, hopefully by mid-summer, because the Iraqis are getting closer and closer to handling their own security. People talk about the “light at the end of the tunnel,” well, it’s right there. We have dappled sunlight on our faces, we can see the trees outside and smell the fresh air. Victory is not far away at this point.

Then there’s health care (What about the Medicare Prescription Drug debacle?), education (What about the massive spending increases on education and No Child Left Behind?), and taxes (When will those tax cuts ever become permanent?) which have been addressed, although not particularly well.

— Last but not least, there is some good news for the politicians currently in power: it’s November of 2005, not November of 2006. So, there’s still time to turn things around.

Endnotes:
  1. these numbers: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113216347138199155-5Z1Ri_om8ITUbV_jD2bx6maguMY_20061116.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/uncategorized/just-when-you-thought-the-poll-numbers-couldnt-get-any-worse/