The political news yesterday was very good indeed. The New York Times reports in
Bush’s Rating Falls to Its Lowest Point, New Survey Finds that the latest NYT/CBS poll finds his approval ratings at their lowest for his entire presidency (42%). 51% disapprove of the way he’s conducting his presidency.
And there are more welcome findings as well in this chart which tracks previous poll results:
1. over 60% of American’s believe the loss of life in Iraq “was not worth it.”
2. 59% believe that Bush is “hiding something” in his statements about Iraq
3. 55% believe that U.S. involvement in Iraq has “created terrorists.”
4. 51% say he has “divided” the nation, rather than united it.
Perhaps the happiest piece of news here is this statement:
Over the past 25 years, according to pollsters, presidents with job approval ratings below 50 percent in the spring of election years have generally gone on to lose. Mr. Bush’s father had a 34 percent job approval rating at this time in 1992.
All of this does not translate immediately into a boost for Kerry since Americans have not yet turned to Kerry in vast numbers as a viable alternative to Bush. But it is still very early in the campaign and if things continue to go as well as they have for him (or to be more precise, as poorly as they have for Bush) then as we get closer to Election Day and voters focus more on the race, this will happen.
