Aug 21st, 2008 at 9:47 am
Bush Approval on the Rise
Here’s an interesting result from the NBC/WSJ poll that I think provides the right context in which to understand recent changes in the campaign. Bush’s approval rating is on the rise and has been for months:
– 8/08: 31%
–7/08: 30%
–6/08: 28%
–4/08: 27%
That’s still a low approval rating and an inauspicious sign for Republicans, but a four point rise isn’t something to sneer at and the reality of the shift is underscored by the consistency of the direction. The underlying public mood, completely apart from the ins-and-outs of any particular campaign, is shifting in a more conservative-friendly direction and that tide should help lift a lot of boats.
57 Responses to “Bush Approval on the Rise”
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August 21st, 2008 at 9:51 am
Well, if you look at the aggregate at pollster.com, it’s certainly not showing anything like that trend in the approval numbers. A very recent and very slight uptick. Definite movement in the disapproval rating though.
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/jobapproval-bush.php
August 21st, 2008 at 9:51 am
I think Bush’s rising approval ratings have less to do with a more conservative-friendly environment than with the fact that, at the twilight of his presidency, Bush is increasingly seen as the embarrassing uncle who will soon go back to where he came from than the man in charge. A guy with four months left in office doesn’t stir the same passions than a man in the middle of his term.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:54 am
The McCains can now go out and buy a few more yachts– after all if this rising tide is going to lift all boats, a disproportionate number of those boats might as well belong to them.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:54 am
“The underlying public mood, completely apart from the ins-and-outs of any particular campaign”
And the “underlying public mood” is not something that exists “completely apart from the ins-and-outs of any particular campaign”. There’s currently a Presidential campaign going on which is getting a fair bit of notice from the public and is influencing the “underlying public mood”.
Matthew’s bizarre insistence that campaigns don’t matter leads him to all kinds of incorrect assumptions.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:55 am
I will agree that Bush Jr. has probably helped himself and his party greatly by cutting down on the number of astoundingly, embarrassingly awful gigantic things he’s done wrong lately. The deeper infrastructure of awful continues unabated.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:55 am
Why should’t Bush’s ratings be rising? T
he Democratic Leadership certainly doesn’t seem to think he and the Republicans are doing anything wrong. When was the last time you heard the slightest peep of criticism?
Everything’s just PEACHY. Everything’s for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:56 am
McCain is making Bush look better and better.
…to me, anyway.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:57 am
Bush has quit doing stuff. So, less irritation. When he does stuff — like scold Russia for doing in Georgia what he’s doing in Iraq — he’s got the same old anti-Midas touch. But mostly, he’s been off-stage.
George Bush? Who’s he? Wasn’t he president?
August 21st, 2008 at 9:59 am
The price of gas is down, what, $0.50 since April?
August 21st, 2008 at 10:03 am
I told my brother weeks ago that gas will be much closer to $3/gal at election day than $4. And with so much underlying racism, it will be easy to get lots of people who voted for Kerry to not vote for Obama.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:05 am
Bush’s approval ratings ran up a bit leading into the 2004 and 2006 elections as well–I dare say that might be a bit of a Republicans rallying around the flag effect.
The thing is, each time he is starting from a lower point. And already in 2006, it was too low to save the Republicans.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:16 am
Come on, Matt – four points in four months? That’s nearly within the margin of error, and regardless it’s a very small change over that period of time.
I think we’re creating a pattern here where none actually exists.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:18 am
Bush is up because the Conservatives love it when there is any posibility of reviving the cold War. Following McInsane’s lead Bushbag went after the “USSR” with gusto! They were completely lost without the Evil empire to feed their hate hunger. This has keep their minds off the fact Bushbag is preparing to sign a TIMELINE for withdrawl from Iraq! When that happens watch his approval tank again!
August 21st, 2008 at 10:19 am
Glenn is right. Matt, don’t you know to look at the aggregate polls by now?
August 21st, 2008 at 10:28 am
This is the standard hardening of Conservative support surrounding the election. It really says nothing about the state of the American public at all. I predict it will continue to rice to about 33%, and then stop. If McCain loses in November, expect it to come crashing right back down as Bush is blamed for that loss.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:31 am
I can’t believe you use one poll to make this judgement. Pollster.com has Bush going in the opposite direction as of July.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:36 am
Guys, I think Matt’s joking. Relax.
Of course, if he’s serious then good points, everyone. But it seems like this may that classic Yglesias sarcasm that I am a fan of.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:41 am
Wow — I read the post and said, What terrific sarcasm! Then I come in here and find everyone treating it as fact, with no rebuttal from Matthew. What was it Joe Pesci said in My Cousin Vinny? — “You were SERIOUS about that?”
Four points is margin of error stuff; this “rise” is not universally matched in other polls (many remain in the 20s); and, even if completely true, it falls into the “been down so long it feels like up to me” — like someone with a temperature reading of 106 getting excited about dropping to 105. Anything much below 50 is negative election territory; below 40 is sure-fire loser; 30 or below is infect-the-whole-party-with-Ebola stuff.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:50 am
Well I for one disapprove of him a bit less lately, because he’s been acting like less of a lunatic than usual. Maybe that’s got something to do with it.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:01 am
Um, getting back to the aggregate polling at pollster.com:
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/jobapproval-bush.php
I’m always surprised at the size of the scatter among the polls. Bush is just unpopular, and that hasn’t changed in a significant way for the past year or two.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:02 am
Hello:
I don’t think it’s so much a sign of his approval rating rising so much as it’s a sign that his irrelevance is making the public more ambivalent about him.
I get the sense that people know his wings have been clipped and he is much less likely to do any more damage now that the days are winding down.
Metaphorically, there was an ax-wielding lunatic running around in the neighborhood. The caught him and we are all less concerned about him.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:23 am
Bush has been nearly invisible. That helps.
.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:35 am
If you take nothing and you add nothing to it, you’ve still got nothing. I think the Republicans are still at that point, Matt. 31% is very, very low.
I did recently see a Newsweek magazine in a store with a cover with a picture of Bush on it and the headline “What Bush Did Right.” Disgusting! Perhaps the shameless, concerted propaganda efforts like this from our corrupt media, plus keeping him out of the spotlight to turn attention from what Bush is doing now towards the campaign, are what helped.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I don’t know if this is real or if it’s real, why it’s happening. But it may be due to the fact that Bush has been less terrible lately. If the Condi/Iraq timetable story is actually true, then it sounds like they are moving in a responsible direction in Iraq, instead of just trying to leave as enormous a mess as possible for the next administration to deal with.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:24 pm
About 40% of the population are die-hard Republicans. As election day gets closer and it looks like a Democrat may win, more of the faithful will come home to roost.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:29 pm
wait, matt, just a couple days ago you were warning us of drawing too strong inference from isolated polls…and then you do it yourself!
August 21st, 2008 at 3:31 pm
In five years he’ll look like a genius.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I think that part of it can be attributed to the George W. Bush gushfest that is a very strange aspect of NBC’s coverage of the Olympics. They love them some Dubya.
August 21st, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Inevitably, Professor Pollkatz has his Bush index graphed against his index of inverse gasoline prices; both are now moving in the same direction, i.e. up. A lot of Americans seem to think that it’s the job of government to get them cheap gas, and much of the souring on Bush had to do with the fact that the Iraq War failed to bring the flood of cheap gas a lot of people were expecting [Yes, I've actually heard people saying this]. This is one thing that makes me very nervous about the upcoming election; the Dems, for the best of reasons, are not for cheap gas.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:33 pm
You’re right in particular but wrong in general Matt. Bush’s approval ratings have been trending downward more or less steadily for the past 3 years, starting in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. His disapproval ratings have been trending upward in mirror image. Look at the polling numbers from a variety of sources at pollingreport.com. The trends are pretty unmistakable, and there’s no recent change in direction. You might find one particular poll here or there that seems to indicate otherwise, but I would suggest that these are the result of noise in the data, sampling problems, or other statistical anomalies confined to that one source. I’ll be happy to send you the scattergraph showing all of the polls combined (you’ve got my email address).
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:07 am
Nobody gets humor anymore.
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