The Left Coaster: Comment on Gallup Says Bush Has Fallen To 44%

Comments: Gallup Says Bush Has Fallen To 44%

This is encouraging, but I'm not really gonna start to feel good until the numbers are all at 35% or below.

Most importantly, we need to see Bush's approval rating in the "war on terror" in the 30's. We need so see the country coming to the understanding that this president has been working against the interest of this country when it comes to international terrorism: going into Iraq illegitimately, near-zero effort on defenses (port security etc.), poisoning of international good will towards the U.S., and on and on...

Posted by Doug at July 29, 2005 02:23 PM

Bush's numbers would be negative if the god damn Democrats would show some spines and balls and hate him as much as we hate the Democrats.

Posted by Loyal Lefty at July 29, 2005 03:03 PM

Steve: I am disappointed in your quasi-analysis of party identification especially due to your excellent work on Gallup last year. Any one poll where the Party ID numbers move around a bit has to be accepted as random sampling error unless the sample is massive so the MOEs are tiny. The number being polled here is insufficient to make the claims that you seem to be making on the turning marginal Republican self-identifiers into Independent self-identifiers.

Bush@44% is good enough news as it is, no need to extend an analysis into technically dubious grounds as you did here.

Posted by fester at July 29, 2005 03:06 PM

Fester:

Criticism accepted.

Posted by Steve Soto at July 29, 2005 03:31 PM

Doug (above) -

We need so see the country coming to the understanding that this president has been working against the interest of this country when it comes to international terrorism . . .

Pardon me for being a nitpicker but I take exception to your restricting Bush's working against the interest of this country to international terrorism. I suggest instead:

We need so see the country coming to the understanding that this president has been working against the interest of this country. period

Posted by JB (not John Bolton) at July 29, 2005 03:40 PM

Steve,

What do you make of this portion at the bottom of the Gallup report, regarding party identification?

"For comparison's sake, the party identification averages were evenly divided in Gallup Polls conducted in the first half of 2005 (34% Republican and 33% Democratic) and in all of 2004 (34% Republican and 34% Democratic)."

I find it interesting that over the last month, 4 polls show an average ~35 Dem v. 30 Rep distribution. Again, may not be statistically significant, but interesting nevertheless.

Posted by eriposte at July 29, 2005 03:56 PM

JB -- I totally agree. But if we concentrate on convincing people about the WoT first, I think the rest will follow quite naturally.

Also, people will be willing to see him impeached if they think he's helping make more 9/11's happen. They may not if they just think he's wrong on health care, corporate cronyism, the environment, etc.

Impeachment will happen if -- and only if -- enough people in the country agree that it's just too dangerous to have him in office a day longer. If that condition is not met, then even with a sufficient Democratic majority for impeachement, to do so would cause a successful backlash from the Conservatives.

Because I don't think we're going to see an actual crime being stuck to him or Cheney. But we can get them both out on the basis of the "political crime" of lying to the American People if we also have the "too dangerous" part of the equation.

For reference, here's an article where salon.com got statements on impeachment from 4 constitutional scholars. The first page in particular is what I'm basing my reasoning on.

Posted by Doug at July 29, 2005 04:08 PM

The first page in particular is what I'm basing my reasoning on.

I should be more specific -- it's the statement:

Impeachment is a political process with some legal overtones, not a legal one with some political overtones.

Posted by Doug at July 29, 2005 04:17 PM

*yawn*

liberal poll.

liberal results.

I'll get excited when I see a respectable institution's poll.

Posted by Al at July 29, 2005 04:50 PM

I'll get excited when I see a respectable institution's poll.

Plese list which institutions you find "respectable", whose polls we should wait for.

Wait, I think I can get it started for you:

1. Fox News
2. Washington Times
3. New York Post

Please feel free to fill in any others you have in mind.

Posted by Doug at July 29, 2005 05:27 PM

the new gallup poll numbers are the lowest ever recorded since the second world war for a 2nd term president....go gettum fraud

Posted by dennis at July 30, 2005 08:12 AM

as fun as it's been to watch Bush plummet, the unfortunate facts are that, (A) he will keep pushing the hard right agenda anyway and (B) he is president until 2008, barring impeachment. This situation sets up the 06 elections as possibly the most important non-presidential elections in the nation's history.

Posted by T2 at July 30, 2005 09:00 AM

dems win the house in 2006..and they might..the fraud is impeached...as he should be

Posted by dennis at July 30, 2005 09:22 AM

"Update: As Fester noted in the comment thread, it is a little premature on my part to draw a conclusion about Indies based on such a swing over several weeks.)"

Anecdotal evidence: Life-long Republican family friends of ours are fed up with Dumbya and did, in fact, withdraw from the Republican party and then registered as Independents. Still, a little premature, but...

Posted by Tom H. at August 1, 2005 10:49 AM