Last night, in the South Carolina debate among Democratic presidential candidates, John Kerry disclaimed his previous statement that it was a “mistake” for Democrats to believe they had to break Bush’s hold on the south to win the 2004 election. He declared: “I’ve always said I could compete in the south and we can win in the south”.
John Edwards saw Kerry’s statement and raised it. According to Edwards, it would be an “enormous mistake” for any Democrat to write off the south and its “enormous” cache of electoral votes. He added: “No Democrat has been elected president without carrying give southern states”.
Man, that’s putting the bar mighty high! Does anyone really believe the Democrats can win five southern states in 2004? If not, according to Edwards, they’re toast.
DR begs to differ. While he is not of the dogmatic “forget the south” school, he does believe that a basically nonsouthern strategy is the right one for the Democrats this year, if it is pursued in a sensible way. He submits, for your consideration, an extended excerpt from his recent article on the subject in The American Prospect. If you find it of interest, a link for the full article is included at the end of the excerpt.
The Nonsouthern Strategy: Not Whether But How
And now, as candidates and journalists shake the New Hampshire snows off their boots and the primary process heads south, we can look forward to a spate of media stories raising the question of whether any Democratic presidential candidate can effectively compete in the 11 southern states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Pundits will revisit Howard Dean’s maladroit remark about voters with “Confederate flag decals on their pickup trucks” and mull over last November’s big GOP gubernatorial wins in the region.
There’s one problem with the media’s question, though: It is irrelevant. The Democratic nominee will run a strategy anchored in non-southern states. And he should, for one simple reason: It is the only way to win. The reality is that just as you will not see much of George W. Bush in Providence, R.I., a Democratic message and strategy that can successfully oust the president will be one most palatable to the party’s base and to swing voters on the coasts, in the industrial Midwest and in border states, and throughout the burgeoning Southwest. The South will have little to do with it.
Here’s why. Putting the Gore-Nader vote together as an indicator of underlying Democratic strength, and comparing it with the Bush-Buchanan vote, the eight closest states the Democrats won in 2000 and will have to defend in 2004 are Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. Using the same comparison, here are the eight closest states the Democrats lost in 2000, some of which they will obviously have to win in 2004: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Tennessee. By these rankings, only two out of 16 states critical to Democratic chances are in the South. Compare that with six in the Midwest and four in the Southwest and you have a sense of the mathematical logic that is driving the Democrats to focus their 2004 presidential strategy outside the South.
That logic is reflected in the state targeting lists put out by Democratic voter-mobilization groups. For example, Steve Rosenthal’s America Coming Together (ACT), which is shaping up to be the most important of these organizations, has a list of 17 targeted states, only two of which are in the South (including Florida, but with Arkansas substituted for Tennessee). The rest of ACT’s list is the same as above, with the addition of Maine and the substitution of West Virginia for Colorado.
Let’s face it: This ain’t rocket science. The data are pretty clear on where the Democrats need to concentrate their resources, and, given that their resources are limited, they will seek to concentrate them in the most efficient manner. By and large, that’s not in the South. End of story.
Or is it? Political stories are rarely so simple, and this one is no exception. There could, in fact, be negative consequences to the non-southern strategy that Democrats must avoid or mitigate if the strategy is to be politically effective in 2004 and beyond. First, by disregarding conservative southern voters, the Democrats might wind up with a message that’s too far left. Second, by ignoring the South too completely, the Democrats might miss some significant political opportunities — both short-term and long-term — in that region. Third, by pulling the presidential campaign out of the South, down-ballot Democratic candidates in the region (especially for the Senate) could be easy pickings for the GOP. Confronting these problems head-on could make the difference between a successful strategy and one that does more to weaken than help the Democrats’ chances.
One of the advantages of the non-southern strategy is that the Democratic presidential candidate won’t have to try to appeal to a bloc of very conservative southern white voters who aren’t likely to vote for him anyway. In Georgia, for example, more white voters say they’re conservative than say they’re moderate, and almost a third say they’re members of the religious right. And, of course, white voters in Georgia are notoriously susceptible to racial politics around issues like the Confederate flag. A national Democratic candidate who tailors his message to these voters will likely succeed only in depressing base turnout, without any compensating electoral payoff.
The possible disadvantage is that the candidate, free from this constraint, will run too far to the left in order to please the liberal base of the Democratic Party. That would be unfortunate, as well as quite stupid. The whole point of this strategy should be to allow the Democrats to craft a clear message that both excites liberal base voters and holds appeal for moderate white swing voters, especially in the Midwest where the loss of manufacturing jobs and health-care access have hit particularly hard.
A quick look at Ohio — perhaps the most coveted Democratic electoral target in the coming election — illustrates this. Al Gore lost Ohio’s 21 electoral votes by less than 4 points in 2000, and the combined Gore-Nader vote ran only 2 points behind the combined Bush-Buchanan vote. In that election, Gore got 41 percent of the white vote; 44 percent and he would have won the state.
The economic basis for such a modest increase should be there for Democrats in 2004. Heavily unionized Ohio (37 percent of voters are in union households, including 35 percent of white voters) has lost one-sixth of its manufacturing jobs since Bush took office, including a stunning 81,000 since November 2001, the official beginning of the current economic recovery. A strong critique of the Bush administration’s economic record should fall on receptive ears. It’s also worth noting that the Gore campaign basically abandoned Ohio in early October of 2000, shifting resources elsewhere; so, arguably, just having a candidate who competes in the state may get Democrats much of the additional support they need.
Finally, white voters in Ohio tend to be moderate rather than conservative. They are quite unlikely to consider themselves members of the religious right and are largely unaffected by issues like the Confederate flag. This will make it harder for Republicans to sway white voters away from their economic problems simply on cultural grounds, as the GOP can do so effectively in a southern state like Georgia.
But that doesn’t mean that Democrats can relax and be as liberal as they want to be about social issues and cultural sensibilities. On the contrary, Ohio, according to a recent Pew Research Center report, is still one of the more traditional states in the country on social issues. And about half of white voters there own a gun and tend to be suspicious of Democrats’ views on gun control.
This means that the non-southern strategy, if it is to succeed in a critical state like Ohio, still needs the kind of “values centrism” espoused by Bill Clinton. Yes, Democrats have to support bedrock principles like a woman’s right to choose, but that support has to be framed in moral terms these voters can understand (“safe, legal and rare”) and combined with moderate stances on issues like gun control (think “gun safety”).
The non-southern strategy is not about running as if every state were California. It’s more about running as if every state were Ohio — true to the Democratic principles and priorities cherished by the base but attentive to the concerns of the moderate swing voters who can put you over the top.

DR would not anyone to think, based on yesterday’s post, that he considers Kerry to be some paragon of electability: the Democrats’ dream candidate. He’s got a list of Senate votes and public statements as long as your arm (longer!) that the Republicans will use to typecast him as a stale, out-of-step Massachusetts liberal. And his campaigning style is, shall we say, not exactly electrifying.
But DR does believe he’s an improvement over Howard Dean in the electability department. And, despite the problems mentioned above, he could also have an electability advantage over Edwards or Clark (though this is less clear).
To radically simplify, a presidential candidate needs to impress voters in three ways: as commander-in-chief and defender of national security; as steward of the economy and custodian of the domestic agenda; and through his campaigning and ability to connect with voters. In each of these areas, Kerry, in DR’s view, achieves threshhold credibility–that is, he’s good enough to make most voters give him a closer look without saying: “no way can I vote for that guy”.
Instead voters (at least our typical primary voter) might say: Kerry as commander-in-chief? He seems plausible. Kerry on domestic issues? Well, pretty good, he seems to know what he’s talking about. Kerry as campaiger? Not exciting, sure, but at least he’s disciplined and doesn’t say a lot of goofy stuff.
There you have it. Threshhold credibility! Contrast that with Dean, who seems implausible to many as commander-in-chief and, as a campaigner, has shown an inability to keep a lid on it when he really needs to. Or compare with Clark, who seems very plausible indeed as commander-in-chief, but seems painfully thin in the domestic area and has shown himself not-quite-ready-for-prime-time on the campaign trail. Or with Edwards, who is a great campaigner, with a pretty good to excellent domestic agenda, but who falls short in the commander-in-chief department.
Looked at this way, it seems logical that Kerry, with his threshhold credibility in all three areas, would be the guy Democratic primary voters would turn to as they move from protest to who-can-beat-Bush politics.
It seems possible–even likely–that Kerry will be able to parlay this threshhold credibility advantage into enough support to get the Democratic nomination. But will that be enough for him to win the general election? Almost certainly not. Credibility in these departments merely means voters will give him a close look. He’ll still have to close the sale and there are reasons to worry that Kerry has not yet found the themes and signature programs that will enable him to do so. Certainly his revival of warmed-over Gore-style populism does not augur well. That populism, despite its many virtues, is unlikely to be adequate to the task of defeating George Bush in a post-9/11 environment. Much, much more will be needed.
But that’s a subject for another post.

With 97 percent of the precincts reporting, Kerry is running far ahead of Dean (39 percent to 26 percent) and Clark and Edwards (about 12 percent each) are battling it out for third and fourth. This a great result for Kerry and a poor one for Dean, though DR is not yet persuaded that Kerry is the Annointed One, nor that Dean is irrevocably toast (though he’s hurting pretty bad).
Based on the exit polls though, we can confirm the message of the Iowa caucus voting that Democratic voters are increasingly focused on electability and mainstream issues and decreasingly interested in “sending ’em a message” and protest politics around the Iraq war. Consider these data from the exit poll (note that numbers here may change slightly as the National Election Pool reweights its data to reflect the final vote tally).
About one third of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters said flat-out that electability (“can beat Bush”) was more important to their vote than issues. Among those voters, Kerry walloped Dean 56 percent to 14 percent. Then, when you look at the specific issues that voters said were most important to their vote, Kerry was way ahead of Dean among the 60 percent of New Hampshire voters who selected the economy and jobs, health care or education, the top three issues in the nation, according to most national polls.
Among health care voters, Kerry led Dean 43 percent to 26 percent; among economy and jobs voters, Kerry led 48 percent to 18 percent and among education voters Kerry led 44 percent to 23 percent. In fact, the only issue voters among whom Dean led were Iraq voters, who favored Dean over Kerry by 37 percent to 33 percent.
Looking at top candidate qualities motivating voters, we find Kerry again doing hugely well among voters who selected “can beat Bush” (62 percent to 10 percent for Dean) or experience (58 percent to 9 percent) and beating Dean by about his margin of overall victory among those who selected “cares about people” or “positive message”. Dean, on the other hand, only won among those who selected “stand up for beliefs” (47 percent to 21 percent for Kerry) or “shake things up” (46 percent to 13 percent). But those send-em-a-message and protest voters were only 36 percent of the primary voters, hence Dean’s poor overall performance.
This skew in Dean’s support is underscored by some of the other (very few) categories where he beat Kerry. He beat Kerry among those who described themselves as “very liberal” (15 percent of primary voters) by 41 percent to 30 percent. And he beat Kerry among those who want to repeal all the Bush tax cuts (32 percent of primary voters) by 37 percent to 34 percent.
The demographics of Dean’s support were also not impressive. He lost every age category to Kerry except those 18-29 (where he led by just 34 percent to 33 percent). He lost every income category. He lost every education category, only coming close to Kerry among those with a postgraduate education. He lost among both union and nonunion households (so much for the SEIU/AFSCME endorsements). He lost veterans and non-veterans. He lost those who own a gun and those who don’t. And he lost independents and got creamed among moderates.
More on these results tomorrow as well as an assessment of Kerry’s chances, both for the nomination and as a general election candidate.

Yesterday, DR highlighted some results from the new Newsweek poll that indicate Bush’s State of the Union (SOTU) address failed to generate the traditional post-speech bounce in presidential support. Today more results of the poll have been released and further illustrate his lack of success in moving public opinion.
The poll asked voters to rate the importance of a series of issues to their 2004 White House vote. Here are the top six issues, with the percent saying “very important” in parentheses: economy and jobs (83 percent); health care (75 percent); education (74 percent); terrorism and homeland security (70 percent); the situation in Iraq (70 percent); and Social Security/Medicare (69 percent).
Then, they asked voters who selected a given issue as “very important” whether they thought a Democratic president would do a better job than Bush on that issue. Here are the same issues with the percentage point lead (or deficit) for a Democratic president among these voters: economy and jobs (+22); health care (+34); education (+22); terrorism and homeland security (-18); situation in Iraq (dead even); and Social Security/Medicare (+32).
Pretty interesting! Despite how much Bush dwelt on terrorism and Iraq in his SOTU address, his lead on the former, his area of greatest strength, is actually less than the Democratic leads on the four domestic issues. And he has no lead whatsoever on Iraq, the front line, according to him, of the war against terror.
It’s also worth noting that a Democratic president leads Bush on every other issue tested in this poll: the environment (+46); the federal budget deficit (+40); US relations with major European allies (+20); appointing new Supreme Court and federal judges (+12); foreign policy (+10); and even taxes (+8).
Turning to various proposals and decisions Bush referred to in his speech, it is striking that none of them elicit an approval rating above the mid-50’s, except for “giving government funding to churches and other religious groups that provide social services” (65 percent). And DR was fascinated to note that “a constitutional amendment, if necessary, to ban gay marriage in all states” got only a 46 percent approval rating, with equally high disapproval.
Finally, how about this one: “Do you think going to war with Iraq has made Americans safer from terrorism?”. Yes: 44 percent. No: 53 percent. Since this is exactly the case Bush was trying to make in the SOTU, disagreement here is a particularly telling indicator that his speech should be considered “mission not accomplished”.

On Wednesday, DR commented on how partisan Bush’s State of the Union (SOTU) address seemed and, for that reason, out of step with the political center of the country which harbors considerable skepticism about the president and his policies.
Results of the latest Newsweek poll, conducted two days after Bush’s address, suggest this diagnosis was accurate. Instead of the bounce in approval ratings frequently enjoyed by presidents after they deliver the SOTU, Bush appears to have landed with a thud.
The Newsweek poll has his approval rating down to 50 percent, with 44 percent disapproval, the worst rating of his presidency in this poll. Moreover, just 44 percent say they want to see him re-elected, compared to 52 percent who say they don’t, also the worst “re-elect” performance of his presidency. Finally, John Kerry actually beats Bush in a head-to-head matchup among registered voters, 49 percent to 46 percent, which has not happened before in Newsweek‘s poll. Other candidates don’t fare quite so well, but are still close. Clark, for example, has only a 1 point deficit in a Bush-Clark matchup and John Edwards loses his matchup by only 3 points (note that Edwards hitherto has never been closer than 11 points when matched up against Bush).
Guess Bush would have been wiser to give a real State of the Union address, rather than the partisan jeremiad he chose to deliver. But it’s too late now. On to November!

Is Dean’s campaign dead? Maybe. Maybe not. DR doesn’t pretend to know the answer to that question.
But DR feels a little surer about something that should be dead: the Dean campaign’s theory that an influx of new voters can make up for deficits among the swing voters who typically show in national elections. Dean has said: “We can’t beat George Bush with the same people who voted in 2000. The only way we can beat George Bush is by attracting people who have given up on politics.” (See articles last week by John Harris in The Washington Post and by John Harwood in The Wall Street Journal for details on the Dean campaign’s orientation toward new voters.)
Dean’s campaign is obviously rethinking its approach to a lot of things. Time to rethink their approach to this one as well. Most obviously, an influx of new voters didn’t help Dean much at all in the Iowa caucuses. In fact, those new voters surged in the direction of the caucus winners, Kerry and Edwards. Is there any reason to think this result will be different in the general election? Nope, that’s what usually happens with new voters: they go for the winner and therefore amplify, not change, the result we would have seen without the new voters.
But Dean’s campaign apparently believes they can make up, say, a 52 percent to 48 percent split against the Democrats among the previously-existing electorate (pegging it at 2000’s 105 million voters) by attracting 8 million new voters into the process.
This is nuts. Even assuming they can increase turnout that much, they’d have to get a 3:1 split among these new voters (that is, win these 8 million new voters by 6 million to 2 million) to dig themselves out the hole they’d dug themselves among the rest of the electorate.
It ain’t gonna work. Time to bury this particular idea and bury it deep.

Expanding on yesterday’s post about how the political center of the country is leaning against Bush and toward the Democrats, here are some very interesting data from the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.
Among political independents, Bush’s approval ratings are almost all net negative: overall (45 percent approval/50 percent disapproval); foreign policy (40 percent/50 percent); Iraq (44 percent/49 percent); and the economy (37 percent/58 percent).
Bush’s favorability rating is also net negative among independents: 33 percent favorable/39 percent unfavorable. And by 9 points, (46 percent to 37 percent), independents say they will probably support the Democratic candidate rather than Bush in the November election. Note that Bush actually carried independents by 2 points in 2000, an election in which he lost the popular vote, so a deficit of this magnitude–of even half that size–would probably sink him in ’04.
And check out these party favorability ratings among independents: net negative on the GOP (43 percent favorable/46 percent unfavorable) and strongly net positive on the Democrats (52 percent/36 percent).
More anti-Bush sentiment: by 14 points (56 percent to 42 percent), independents do not have confidence in Bush’s ability to deal wisely with an international crisis; by 33 points (64 percent to 31 percent), independents lack confidence in Bush’s ability to make the right decisions on the nation’s economy; by 24 points (58 percent to 34 percent), they don’t think Bush has the same priorities for the country as they do; and by 39 points (62 percent to 23 percent), they think Bush is more interested in protecting the interests of large corporations than the interests of ordinary Americans.
On the economic front, just 13 percent of independents think their family is better off financially now than they were when Bush took office; and the exact same low number of independents believe Bush administration policies have increased the number of jobs in the country.
In terms of the war, independents, by a wide 57 percent to 38 percent margin don’t think the result of the war was worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq. And, by 55 percent to 40 percent, they think the Bush administration was too quick to involve the US in a war in Iraq.
But perhaps these voters will be impressed with the role of religion in Bush’s life, despite their disagreements with his policies? Nope. By 53 percent to 43 percent, they say they don’t even want to hear about the role of religion in candidates’ lives during the presidential campaign.
In closing this post, let me offer three propositions:
1. Independents will decide the outcome of the 2004 election.
2. Independents, because they’re leaning toward the Democrats in so many different ways, will give the Democratic candidate a long and respectful listen in this election.
3. Therefore, the best candidate for the Democrats in 2004 will be the one who can communicate most effectively with independents and turn their leanings into actual votes.

DR’s made no secret about his doubts concerning Dean’s electability. Now it appears that a good chunk of the Democratic electorate may share some of those misgivings.
Indeed, there’s a case to be made that the Iowa caucus results are a victory for electability as a criterion for selecting the Democratic nominee. It’s not just that Dean got hammered; it’s that Gephardt also got creamed.
Polls have persistently showed that repealing all of Bush’s tax cuts, including those for the middle class, is an unpopular position, even among Democratic voters. Of course, this was Dean’s position….but it was also Gephardt’s position, in spades. He not only wanted to repeal all of Bush’s tax cuts but he proposed to spend all the savings from repealing the cuts on a very, very expensive $2.3 trillion health plan. Target practice for Karl Rove, in DR’s view.
Then there’s the Iraq war. Sure Americans tend to be critical of the way the Iraq war has been motivated and conducted by the Bush administration and are very worried that the war’s overall result might not be worth the casualties and money it is costing. But they also see the vanquishing of Saddam Hussein as a very good thing and support the way we used military force to do that. A muddled position kind of like…..well, like that of John Kerry and John Edwards, the winners of the Iowa caucuses.
The Iowa entrance poll results cast further light on the role of the war in caucus voting. Caucus voters overwhelmingly said (75 percent) said they disapproved of the war in Iraq. These voters unsurprisingly gave little support to the most pro-war viable candidate (Gephardt, 9 percent) but also gave only 24 percent of their support to Dean, the anti-war candidate. They gave most of their support to the “muddlers”–34 percent to Kerry and 24 percent to Edwards (probably understated, since Edwards fared better in the final causus results than he did in the entrance poll).
The poll also shows that the ability to “beat Bush” was a significant determinant of the caucus vote–26 percent selected this trait as the most important quality guiding their choice of candidate. These voters gave two-thirds of their support to Kerry (37 percent) or Edwards (30 percent).
In fairness to Dean, slightly more voters (29 percent) selected taking strong stands as the most important quality determining their vote and, of these voters, more voted for Dean (31 percent) than for Kerry (26 percent) or Edwards (23 percent).
But other bright spots for Dean were few and far between. Those who described themselves as very liberal were more favorable to Dean (32 percent) than any of the other candidates. So were those who selected the war in Iraq as their most important issue (14 percent of caucus-goers). Finally, those who chose their candidate more than a month before the caucus favored Dean over Kerry by a slim 32 percent to 28 percent margin.
That’s it though. Not exactly a record that inspires confidence in Dean as a viable general election candidate. Or in his ability to garner the Democratic nomination, for that matter. We shall see what voters in New Hampshire and beyond have to say. But for the time being it looks like electability is here as a serious factor in selecting the Democratic nominee. Electability fever: catch it!

A couple of days ago, DR flagged the fact that, according to the CBS News/New York Times poll, Bush’s approval bounce from the capture of Saddam Hussein had completely disappeared. Yesterday, he complained bitterly about the New York Times graphic that showed Bush’s approval rating going up at very time it appeared to be losing altitude rapidly .
Now the most recent Gallup poll has been released, which has Bush’s approval rating down to 53 percent, a 6 point drop from their last poll and 2 points below where he was in this poll before Saddam was captured. With this confirmation of Bush’s disappearing bounce, it’s a good time to delve more deeply into the detailed CBS News/New York Times results and highlight the many ways his political vulnerabilities have re-emerged as this bounce has dissipated.
Start with the classic right direction/wrong track question. Right before Saddam’s capture, the CBS News poll had this measure at 39 percent right direction/56 percent wrong track; right after the capture the measure suddenly moved to into positive territory, 49 percent right direction/43 percent wrong track. But now it’s back in solidly negative territory, 42 percent right direction/53 percent wrong track (this includes an abysmal 37 percent right direction/58 percent wrong track rating among political independents).
Bush’s favorability rating is now almost evenly split (41 percent favorable/38 percent unfavorable) for the first time in his presidency. His 38 percent unfavorable rating is his highest ever, as is his 45 percent disapproval rating on how he is handling his job as president.
Note also that the Democratic party now has a substantially higher favorability rating than the Repoublican party. The public’s view of the Democratic party is 54 percent favorable/36 percent unfavorable, while the public’s view of the Republicans is 48 percent favorable/43 percent unfavorable.
On the generic horse race question for 2004, 43 percent say they’d vote for Bush, while 45 percent say they’d support the Democratic candidate. That’s down from a 9 point lead Bush had after Saddam was captured and, again, is several points weaker than he was peforming before the capture.
And here are a wide range of results that speak to Bush’s continuing vulnerabilities. The public is split down the middle (49 percent/49 percent) about whether they confidence in Bush’s ability to deal wisely with an international crisis. And by a substantial 57 percent to 39 percent, the public says they are uneasy, rather than confident, in Bush’s ability to make the right decisions about the nation’s economy. That is by far the worst rating of his presidency on this question.
Just 41 percent think Bush has the same priorities for the country for the country as they do, compared to 54 percent think this isn’t true. This negative assessment is essentially unchanged since September of last year.
By about a 2:1 margin (58 percent to 30 percent), the public says Bush is more interested in protecting the interests of large corporations than those of ordinary Americans. CBS News has asked this question several times and this is the worst rating of his presidency, including the summer of ’02 when the corporate scandals were dominating the news.
In addition, by huge margins, the public thinks Bush administration policies favor the rich (57 percent), rather than the middle class (11 percent), the poor (1 percent) or all groups the same (25 percent). And, by almost 3:1 (64 percent to 23 percent), the public thinks big business has too much influence, rather than the right amount of influence, on the Bush administration.
Americans overwhelmingly (78 percent) believe their family has not made financial progress during Bush’s time in office–49 percent say they’ve stayed the same and 29 percent report they’re worse off. Just 20 percent say they’re better off. Americans are also very unlikely to believe Bush administration policies have had a positive effect on the number of jobs in the US; a mere 19 percent believe this to be the case. In contrast, 29 percent believe these policies have had no effect and an astonishing 45 percent believe Bush’s have actually decreased the number of jobs.
Finally, assessments of the effects of Bush’s tax cuts are not very positive and, in fact, haven’t changed much since September of last year. At this point, only 27 percent believe the tax cuts have been good for the economy, while most (68 percent) believe either they haven’t much difference (51 percent) or have been bad for the economy (17 percent). And how about this: more people believe Bush administration policies have made their taxes go up (32 percent) than believe these policies have made their taxes go down (19 percent)! The rest (44 percent) believe Bush administration policies have had no effect on their taxes.
All this indicates that the brief bounce in support Bush got from Saddam’s capture did not have a lasting effect on the broad vein of skepticism that the public has about Bush, his policies and their effect on the country. That skepticism remains and is likely to dog him througout this critical election year.

These are the kinds of things the lead DR to weep and wail and gnash his teeth. Here is the graphic accompanying a very short article, “All the Presidents’ Numbers“, by Andrew Kohut and Harry Campbell, on The New York Times’ Sunday Op-Ed page. The theme of the article is that Bush is in good shape politically relative to many of his predecessors.
Ok, there’s a case to be made here but they should have been very careful to make the data in the graphic correct, since that is what most people will look at and digest. DR practically fell off his chair when he looked at the far right hand side of the graphic and saw Bush’s current approval rating pegged at 56 percent and rising.
Rising?!? Pretty much every public poll for the last month, including the Pew Research Center poll which Kohut runs and from which he got the 56 percent approval rating used in the graphic, shows Bush’s approval rating falling steadily from the levels attained right after Saddam’s capture.
It’s bad enough that the press overplays it whenever Bush gets a bounce. But couldn’t they please just report the facts–instead of asserting the exact opposite–when the data unequivocally show his approval ratings are falling? It doesn’t seem like too much to ask.