POLLS
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James Joyner | Saturday, July 12, 2003 |
Markos Zúniga is gleeful about polls showing drops in President Bush’s popularity–thinking they’ll soon drop into the 40s or even 30s!– but does not take polls about the Democratic primary challengers seriously.
What I find interesting is that the raw poll data chart of Bush he provides is actually surprisingly encouraging for Bush supporters. While there was almost a linear aggregate drop from the highs of post 9/11/01, when his numbers were in the unsustainable high 80s/low 90s, the numbers have been steady or even increasing over the last eight months, with all but the outlyers in the 60s throughout that period.
I agree with Markos’ points about polling on primary contenders: Not enough people are paying attention yet and, indeed, what matters is the opinions in the early primary states. The fact that Lieberman seems not to have managed to sustain his inherited frontrunner status is interesting and there are no signs that’s going to change.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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The Newsweek polling data also show that 69 percent of Americans still believe Iraq had WMD right up until the war was launched. That's almost unchanged from May - in spite of the steady drumbeat of Democratic and liberal questions about why we haven't found them.
Not only that, but some of the questions in which Bush appears to do poorly are obviously loaded in a negative way. Newsweek only gives respondents two choices on question 20 about why WMD havent been found: Either he misread intelligence reports, or he lied. Newsweek never gives respondents the choice of saying, "He didn't lie. WMD are there and they will be found."
Markos, it seems to me, is falling right in line with the pattern of people who have completely underestimated President Bush throughout his career.
That's fine. Let them underestimate him. It means he'll continue to get things done as he has in the past two+ years. And given the crew in the hunt for the Dem nom, I think it's almost a sure bet that he'll be reelected next year.
Sure he's got things done. The worst economic record since Herbert Hoover, taking a large surplus and turning it into a huge deficit, and convincing the country to go to war by lying.
Some record.
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