On February 9, DR reviewed results from the latest CNN/Time poll which suggested that the bond of trust between Bush and the American public is undergoing serious erosion. Today, we have results from the just-released ABC News/Washington Post poll which show the same thing, only more so.
By 12 points (54 percent to 42 percent), the public now thinks the Bush administration intentionally exaggerated its evidence that Iraq had WMD. And, by 53 percent to 35 percent, the public thinks the issue of how the administration used intelligence is more important than the accuracy of the intelligence they received.
And here are some very significant figures: just 52 percent now think Bush is “honest and trustworthy”, compared to 45 percent who don’t. That’s down from a 70/26 split on the same question right after the 2002 elcections. And even on “is a strong leader”, he is now at 61 percent yes/38 percent no, a considerable drop from a 74/25 split on the question in April of last year, after the US army took Baghdad.
Speaking of the war in Iraq, the poll finds more people saying the war was not worth fighting (50 percent) than say it was (48 percent). This is the first time this question has been net negative and is down from a 70/27 split in favor of the war being worth it in late April of last year. This is a particularly significant finding since the Post question, as with a recent Gallup finding, makes no specific mention of the costs of war (lives, money, etc.).
Turning to Bush’s approval numbers, the poll, as DR mentioned yesterday, has his overall rating down to 50 percent, with 47 percent approval. Now, since the Post poll generally runs 5 points or so higher than other public polls on his approval rating (recent example: in the middle of last month, the Post had his approval rating at 58 percent while everybody else was around 53 percent), this suggests his approval rating is really tanking.
On Iraq, his ratings have taken a huge hit, down from 60 percent approval/39 percent disapproval in the middle of last month to 47 percent approval/52 percent disapproval now. That means he’s gone from a net +21 to a net -5, a swing of 26 points, in less than two months.
His other approval ratings are also poor, with the exception of handling the US campaign against terrorism, where he still gets 64 percent approval (though even that’s down 15 points from late April of last year). For example, his rating on the economy is down to 44 percent approval/54 percent disapproval. That’s hardly a surprise when 85 percent of the public says most Americans are not better off financially than they were when Bush took office.
In addition, his rating on education is down to 47 percent approval/45 percent disapproval (by far his worst rating ever in this area), his rating on creating jobs is a horrendous 38 percent disapproval/57 percent disapproval land and on the “cost, availability and coverage of health insurance”, he is scraping the bottom with a rating that is net negative by 30 points (32/62).
No wonder John Kerry is faring so well when matched up against Bush these days. He’s preferred over Bush by 18 points on the cost, etc. of health insurance, by 14 points on creating jobs, by 9 points on education and by 8 points on the economy. And in the two areas where he currently trails Bush, the situation in Iraq and the US campaign against terrorism, he is actually doing quite a bit better than the Democrats were doing in matchups with Bush in the middle of last month (Kerry v. Bush, of course, wasn’t being asked at the time)
On Iraq, Democrats were trailing Bush by 20 points last month; Kerry trails by only 7 points (48-41). And on the campaign against terrorism, Democrats were trailing by 29 points and Kerry trails by only 16 (53-37).
Finally, as mentioned yesterday, Kerry leads Bush by 9 points among registered voters in an election trial heat (52-43). Ah, but does this really mean Kerry’s electable or are voters just talking themselves into something, as New Republic writers believe it is their mission in life to point out? (What’s next–Diary of a Kerry-o-phobe?)
DR will tackle this controversy in a future post. For the time being, however, he says to these sourpusses: turn those frowns upside down! Good news is good news and positive signs are positive signs. Sometimes the simplest explanations are the best (remember Occam’s razor?): Bush is vulnerable and Kerry could beat him (though obviously it’s a long way to November, blah, blah, blah).
OK: end of sermon. Now TNR can get back to pointing out what fools the voters are and how equally foolish the rest of us are for taking them seriously.

Rick in Casablanca said “We’ll always have Paris”. Less charmingly, the Republicans seem to believe that, whatever bad things are happening to them, they’ll always have the gay marriage issue to fall back on. Hence, the president’s eagerness to trot out his support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage at a time when his credibility is taking hit after hit, from AWOL to WMD.
How justified is their confidence in the political elixir of gay marriage? In DR’s view, not much.
Start with public views on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Recent polls tend to show that, while the public is opposed to legalizing gay marriage, it is evenly divided on the question of a consitutional amendment. The latest Gallup poll, for example, has it dead-even, 47 percent for/47 percent against. Interestingly, that split is actually a little bit more favorable than it was in July of last year, the last time Gallup asked the question, when 50 percent said they were in favor of an amendment, with 45 percent opposed.
The Gallup poll also finds that the issue of same-sex mariage ranks dead last–14th of out of 14–in a long list of issues respondents were asked to evaluate for their importance in affecting their presidential vote.
The latest Newsweek poll also finds the public about split on a consitutional amendment–47 percent for and 45 percent against. But political independents, consistent with a long-standing pattern of relative liberalism on gay rights issues, are substantially more liberal than the public as a whole: they oppose a constitutional amendment by 53 percent to 40 percent.
Other polling data show that independents are also more liberal the the public as a whole on same-sex civil unions (which they tend to support) and on legalizing gay marriage (where they are split about evenly).
But if independents are a problem with this particular line of GOP attack, young voters are even more so. Their views are gay rights issues are conspicuously and unambiguously liberal. For example, even on the contentious issue of gay marriage, young Americans (18-29) favor allowing such marriages by 13-20 points in recent polls.
What this means, of course, is that attempts by the Bush campaign to inflame the issue of gay marriage around a constitutional amendment are virtually guaranteed to alienate large numbers of independent and young voters, when both critical groups of voters, as DR as repeatedly argued, are already leaning Democratic. To reach these voters, without whom Bush will have a difficult time winning re-election, the Republicans needs to shore up Bush’s image as a tolerant, compassionate conservative not damage it even further.
And what if the Democrats counterattack by saying that a national constitutional amendment is unnecessary and punitive and that states should make their own laws on the issue (as vice-president Cheney, who has a gay daughter has famously advocated)? Then the GOP difficulties on the issue intensify because, according to a January ABC News/Washington Post poll , the public supports the state law approach over the national constitutional amendment approach by a 58 percent to 38 percent margin. And that margin is 60 percent to 38 percent among independents and more than 2:1 (67 percent to 32 percent) among 18-29 year olds.
In short, they may find the gay marriage elixir just gives them another headache.
Note: The just-released ABC News/Washington Post poll, which typically runs high on Bush’s approval rating, has his job rating down to 50 percent and has him losing to Kerry by 9 points among registered voters. More on this poll tomorrow.

The pre-election polls in Virginia and Tennessee suggested neither race would be close and they weren’t. Kerry won both easily, though his margin was wider in Virginia (25 points) than Tennessee (15 points).
Edwards placed second in both races with about the same percent of the vote (26-27 percent). Clark placed third in each (a close third in Tennessee and a weak one in Virginia) and is apparently going to withdraw from the race.
The exit polls can be found here on the CNN site, but they aren’t really of much interest. You’ve seen it all before: Kerry is viewed as most electable by a wide margin and rolls up huge margins among the large segment of voters concerned with electability; Edwards on the other hand, does better among voters concerned with qualities like “cares about people” and “having a positive message”. In fact, Edwards actually beat Kerry among voters who said these qualities were important in both states.
But is that enough for Edwards to mount a real challenge to Kerry, even with Clark dropping out? Nah. This very interesting Democratic primary battle is drawing to a close. And the really big battle is coming up. Whoever your horse was in the primaries, it’s just about time to let that go and concentrate on helping John Kerry beat Bush.
Can Kerry do it? Sure he can–but only if the party unites behind him. Let’s try to make that happen and we can argue later about whether he was or was not the ideal nominee.

His performance in his Meet the Press interview certainly seemed that way. Based on the latest Newsweek poll , that defensiveness is easy to understand. His approval rating in the poll is down to 48 percent with 45 percent disapproval, the worst rating of his presidency.
In addition, for the third straight time in this poll, more say they don’t want to see him re-elected (50 percent) than do (45 percent). Moreover, he’s on the wrong end of an intensity gap: 45 percent strongly don’t feel he should be re-elected, compared to 37 percent who strongly feel he should.
Also for the third straight time, John Kerry leads Bush in a head-to-head matchup, this time by 5 points (50 percent to 45 percent), his biggest lead yet.
DR’s not sure Democrats are psychologically prepared to deal with all this clear evidence of Bush’s vulnerabilities and the very real possibility that he could be beaten in November. In some ways, it’s easier to fall back on the gloomy assumption that Rove and the rest of the GOP machine will find some dirty, but clever, way to deliver the election for Bush, no matter how unpopular he starts to get.
Time to ditch this ridiculous outlook. Rove is certainly a good operative and the GOP machine is well-organized and funded. But fundamentally, they have to play with the political hands they’re dealt. For awhile those hands were amazingly good, which helped the Rove machine look almost magical in its effectiveness. But now their hands are getting worse which will make the Rove machine look progressively less effective and way short of magical.
In other words, hard work, smart politics and a willingness to play hardball may be all Democrats need to beat these guys. No supernatural intervention, contrary to the beliefs of some, will be required.

The latest Ipsos/Associated Press poll has Bush’s approval rating down to 47 percent, with 50 percent disapproval. That’s down from 56 percent approval just a month ago. Apparently, his drop in support has been largest among older voters, those in the Midwest and political independents.
In addition, just 37 percent say they would vote to re-elect Bush, compared to 43 percent who say they would definitely vote against him. That’s down from 41 percent definitely re-elect to 33 percent definitely vote against a month ago. And political independents by 2:1 now say they will defiiniely vote against Bush, rather than for him.
Bush’s approval rating on the economy has also fallen to 44 percent, down 9 points from early January. There has been a similar decline in those willing to say the country is going in the right direction, falling from about half to four in ten.
Let me close with a quote that had ole DR wiggling his long ears appreciatively:
“I think he’s run the country into the ground economically, and he comes out with these crazy ideas like going to Mars and going to the moon,” said Richard Bidlack, a 78-year-old retiree from Boonton, N.J., who says he voted for Bush in 2000. “I’m so upset at Bush, I’ll vote for a chimpanzee before I vote for him.”
By George (or Richard), I think he’s got it!

Two conservative titans, Bob Novak and George Will, faced off today in the op-ed pages of The Washington Post on the southern question: do or do not the Democrats really need the south? And the winner was……George Will. He pointed out, correctly, that the Republicans won many presidential victories in the years after 1880 while winning few southern electoral votes and frequently none at all. Therefore, the idea you need the south to win presidential elections is ahistorical and ignores the changing regional bases of the parties. (Ignore, however, Will’s bizarre contention that the realignment of the south toward Republicans in recent decades had nothing (!) to do with race.)
Novak, on the other hand, relied on that old chestnut “no Democrat has been elected president without winning at least five states of the Confederacy”, including Bill Clinton. But as David Lublin and Tom Schaller point out in their excellent article on The American Prospect website, it’s also true that Clinton would have been elected anyway without any of those southern states.
The logic of this–a Democrat that can win five southern states will almost certainly not need to win them because of electoral strength outside the south–has been well expressed by a frequent commenter on this site and DR thought he’d just reproduce Frankly0’s comment here (originally offered in response to DR’s post on “The Nonsouthern Strategy“):
One basic difficulty posed by the south can be expressed as follows. On the one hand, if the Democratic candidate wins even a single southern state, he will, almost certainly, ALREADY have won the election on the basis of other, non-southern states he will have won even more handily. On the other hand, if the Democratic candidate fails to come close to winning in ANY southern state, he almost certainly will NOT have won enough non-southern states to win the election. In this sense, it is a serious mistake simply to ignore the sensibilities of all Southern voters, because for a good number of them, those sensibilities are not terribly different from large segments of voters in other regions. It is this consideration that exposes the real danger of “kissing off” the South — namely the deviation into a message far too much to the left to win the general election.
I think that the suggestion to craft the democratic message to appeal, for example, to people in Ohio (where Ohio is really a stand in for a much larger region, and a much larger segment of voters across the US) is exactly right. Such a message would have to be a moderate one, and would also appeal to a large number of voters in the South, if not enough to win a single southern state. And this competitiveness in the South would have the desired effects of making the way far easier for down ticket Southern Democrats.
Focusing on a state like Ohio, or, more precisely, the composition of voters it represents, allows the Dem candidate to simplify and sharpen his message — absolutely critical to the success of that message. The fatal flaw in paying too much attention to electoral math is that it tends to fragment and complicate a message, and a complicated message never gets through. It makes sense to tailor a message to broad segments of the American electorate, but too much attention to very localized issues will only confuse and stupefy the average voter.
If a candidate’s message is simple, direct, and appeals to broad segments of the American electorate including most voters in Ohio, then there will be a “rising tide” effect that will increase the candidate’s votes in ALL states, even if that increase is not enough to win in a good number of them.
Exactly. Don’t forget the south, but the way to the south lies outside it, in states like Ohio. Or to put it in Zen terms: you can’t hit the (southern) target if you’re aiming at it.
Point of clarification: The definition of south DR uses is the 11 states of the Old Conderacy: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Some add Kentucky (like Novak above, who would have five states, not four, in his little factoid if he didn’t include Kentucky). Others add Oklahoma. And there are even those who, in a Mason-Dixonish mood, add West Virginia, Maryland and DC. But the Old Confederacy 11, in DR’s view, is basically what the argument is about and it is there he shall stick.

And there just might be. One of the great virtues of Dean’s flame-out in this race is that the leading candidate for the nomination, Kerry, and the possible, though not very likely alternative, Edwards, are both candidates who are basically acceptable to all wings of the party, especially the traditionally feuding New Democrat and liberal wings.
It wasn’t so long ago (a month?) that the DLC was launching polemic after polemic against the dread forces of Mondale-McGovernism (chiefly Dean and maybe Gephardt too if they were in a particularly surly mood) which were taking over the Democratic party and leading it down the road to perdition and certain defeat. Never mind that there was a lot more to Dean and Deanism than that–the battle was joined and all the players reported to their appointed places to cudgel one another mercilessly.
If Dean had become the nominee, the kind of party unity the Democrats need might very well have been lacking. Combine that with the fact that Dean in important ways was not the Democrats’ strongest general election candidate and the stage was set for an unending round of finger-pointing and blood-letting.
But we’ve dodged that bullet. Both Kerry and Edwards should be able to do the necessary job of synthesizing the approaches of different wings of the party into a strong general election message that all will feel enthusiastic about supporting. A message like, say……”a positive, middle-class populism”.
Whose phrase? Why Al From’s, of course, used to describe Kerry’s and Edward’s campaign messages. This from a man who used to shrink from the word “populism” like it was a deadly poison. Now to the untutored eye it might appear that Kerry’s populism (good!, according to Chairman Al) and Gore’s populism (bad!, according to Chairman Al) seem to share much in common and even some of the same phrases.
But what the heck. Who’s counting. What From is really signalling here is that Kerry’s mix of messages, which will include both populism (as it should) and positive, forward-looking programs (as it should) will be acceptable to him, even if Kerry isn’t quite a card-carrying New Democrat.
In fact, the DLC appears willing to make him (and Edwards and even Clark) honorary members simply for not being Howard Dean! In their broadside today, they annoint all three of them as having “solid New Democrat credentials”.
Well, DR doesn’t know if they do. He doesn’t even care. But provided we get everyone on board for the Kerry (or Edwards) candidacy, such pronouncements–from any wing of the party–are perfectly OK. For peace in the valley, DR’s willing to put up with a certain amount of BS.

The votes are still being counted as DR works on this post, but it certainly has been a very good day for John Kerry. He won 5 out of 7 contests, only losing South Carolina and Oklahoma, the two most “southern” states and two states the Democrats are highly unlikely to win. But he won two critical southwestern swing states (Arizona and New Mexico), as well as the great midwestern swing state of Missouri, which are more important states to the Democrats. And he won them easily, as he did Delaware and North Dakota.
On the other hand, the fact that Edwards won a state (South Carolina) and so did Clark (Oklahoma: with 100 percent of the precincts reporting, he is ahead by about 1,300 votes, though CNN has not as yet formally declared him the winner) suggests that one or both of these two candidates may well remain around for awhile. Of the two, Edwards had the better day. Looking at the top four contests (AZ,MO,OK,SC), Edwards’ winning effort in SC an easy victory, while Clark’s in OK was a squeaker. Then Edwards had two seconds, including his almost-winning effort in OK, plus a solid second in MO. Clark, on the other hand, had only his solid second in AZ to go with his squeaker win in OK.
Edwards has another thing going for him that DR finds kind of interesting: in contrast to Kerry, who did substantially less well among independents in each of these states, Edwards generally did substantially better. Here’s Kerry’s data in these states, with Democratic support listed first: AZ: 45/33; MO: 58/34; OK: 29/18; SC: 31/21. Now here’s Edwards: AZ: 7/7; MO: 18/24; OK: 28/34; SC: 43/50.
So Edwards may have an easier time reaching out to independent voters as the primary contests move toward a possible one-on-one stage, as well as an easier time with these voters if he succeeds in getting the nomination (or, more likely, becomes Kerry’s running mate).
As for getting the nomination, it’s going to be very tough indeed to beat Mr. Electability. In each one of these states, including the two he lost, Kerry beat his closest rival easily among those voters who selected “can beat Bush” as their top candidate quality: AZ: 65/18; MO: 75/12; OK: 55/21; SC: 57/29.
Oklahoma and South Carolina, where Kerry’s margins among electability voters were less, were also the two states where there were the fewest electability voters. In neither state did the proportion of electability voters break 20 percent and in neither state was it selected by the most voters as the top candidate quality they were looking for.
So that’s the secret, DR supposes, of beating Mr. Electability: the less the contest is about that, the better off the other candidates (which at this point really means Edwards and Clark and possibly just Edwards) will be.
But the primaries, as we move forward, seem likely to be more, not less, about electability. Which means their only chance may be to steal that mantle from him. Good luck. It ain’t going to be easy.

Yesterday, DR reviewed some of the findings from the most recent Newsweek poll indicating Bush’s current political vulnerability. Today, we’ll take a look at the latest Quinnipiac University poll which is chock full of more bad news for Bush.
In this poll, Bush’s approval rating is even lower than in the Newsweek poll, just 48 percent, with 45 percent disapproval. That’s down 5 points from their last poll just a week ago. And John Kerry runs an impressive 8 points ahead of Bush in a head-to-head matchup, even breaking even among male voters.
Voters say, by more than 3:1 (67 percent to 21 percent), that the economy will be important to their November vote than Iraq. They also say, by 12 points (52 percent to 40 percent) that a new Democratic administration would do a better job on this issue than the Bush administration. And even on Iraq, voters are about equally likely to think a new Democratic administration would do a better job (45 percent) as they are to believe the Bush administration (47 percent) would do better.
The poll also finds that only 52 percent now believe going to war with Iraq was the right thing, compared to 42 percent who believe it was the wrong thing. That’s quite a narrow margin for a question that does not even mention the costs of the war. Note that independents (49 percent to 46 percent) and women (48 percent to 45 percent) are now almost split evenly on the question.
Finally, in a fascinating result that speaks to the difficulties the GOP may have using gay marriage as a wedge issue, while voters overall say they do not support a law allowing same sex civil unions, 53 percent to 40 percent, independents narrowly support such a law by 49 percent to 43 percent.

After all, if it didn’t look like Bush was vulnerable, the race for the Democratic nomination wouldn’t be nearly so interesting. And it would certainly be of much less importance.
Recent developments have surely increased that vulnerability. For example, the Kay revelations have brought back, front and center, the sheer emptiness of the adminstration’s case on Iraq’s WMD. And the violence of the Iraq occupation has exploded: January, in fact, turned out to be the second-deadliest month for US troops since “major combat operations” were declared to be over. So much for the claim that Saddam’s capture would break the back of the Iraqi resistance.
The latest Newsweek poll confirms that increased vulnerability. Bush’s approval rating is down to 49 percent, with 43 percent disapproval, his worst rating ever in this poll. And, for the first time in this poll, a majority (54 percent) believes the Bush administration misinterpreted intelligence about Iraq.
Bush also fares poorly on a standared re-elect question, with 49 percent saying they do not want to see Bush re-elected, compared to just 45 percent who say they do. Moreover, Democratic front-runner John Kerry actually edges Bush, 48 percent to 46 percent, in a head-to-head matchup.
No wonder the Democratic electorate is so focused on electability: Bush stands an excellent chance of being beaten this November by the right Democrat with the right message.
But which Democrat with which message? Stay tuned!