That must be the astonished reaction over at Bush-Cheney re-elect headquarters, as they scan the results of the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.
DR predicted that bounce would disappear pretty quickly, but this is faster than even he anticipated. Check out these approval figures.
Bush’s overall approval rating in this poll is down to 50 percent which is lower than he was before Saddam’s capture (52 percent)–in fact, matching the lowest figure recorded for Bush during his presidency.
His approval rating on the economy, which went up from a net -7 (44 percent approval/51 percent disapproval) to a net +6 (49 percent approval/43 percent disapproval) practically overnight with Saddam’s capture has now returned to exactly where it was before: 44/51. His approval rating on Iraq, which skied from 45 percent to 59 percent with Saddam’s capture has now dropped back to 48 percent. Similarly, his approval rating on foreign policy, which had bounced from 45 percent to 52 percent, is now back down to 47 percent.
More on this and other new polls tomorrow.
Note: DR is happy to report that the technical problem mentioned in the previous post has been fixed. Feel free to click away on anything that interests you on the right-hand nav bar.

The ole Donk is sad to report a bit of a technical problem with the site. While the DR blog is fully functioning, most features on the right-hand navigation bar, like Public Opinion Watch, Join the Dialogue, all the stuff under The Strategy Center and so on just take you right back to the home page. This is not to annoy you!
EDM’s crack technical team is working on this problem even as I write, so rest assured, we’ll have it fixed very soon. Thanks for your patience….and, in the meantime, continue to enjoy DR over this very interesting political weekend.

DR, like everyone else, has been following the latest polls out of Iowa with great interest. One can reasonably infer from these polls that the race is tightening, as, for example, the Zogby tracking poll indicates.
But, beyond this, the results of these polls should be treated with extreme caution.
The reason for this is simple: Any poll is only as good as its sample. In this case, the sample Zogby wants to draw, in an ideal world, is a sample of those Iowans who subsequently do show up at the Monday caucuses. Of course, they can’t do this, so they proxy those voters by drawing a sample of “likely caucus-goers” using various screening questions to do so.
How good is this sample likely to be? As a general rule of thumb, the lower the expected turnout (and in Iowa it will be perhaps one-sixth of registered Democrats and 4-5 percent of the adult population) and the more complex the voting process (like, say, the Iowa caucuses), the less reliable a sample of this kind is likely to be. You just don’t know you’re getting the “right” voters, since the voters you’re screening in may or may not be the ones who show up on caucus night.
In the end, the voters most likely to show up may be the ones who are organized into going by those with the best ground organizations (generally acknowledged to be Dean and Gephardt). That distinction won’t (and can’t) show up in the kind of polls being conducted by Zogby and others.
These problems are accentuated if turnout of caucus voters is unusually high on Monday, as some believe it might. This means the samples drawn by pollsters, which are based on historical turnout patterns, will reflect even more poorly the pool of actual voters who show up at the caucuses.
So, enjoy all the Iowa polling. But keep a big cellarful of salt handy to sprinkle over the results.

Readers may have thought DR was getting soft on Dean, what with his recent post on “Dean: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly“. Certainly, his old buddy, the Deanophobe thought so.
Maybe it’s time to revisit Wes Clark, “Karl Rove’s Nightmare“, as Richard Cohen puts it in an interesting column today in The Washington Post. The latest ARG tracking poll has Clark only 5 points behind Dean in New Hampshire.
If Clark comes in second or even beats Dean in NH then he’s probably really got a shot and the two person race many have predicted may emerge. We’ll see. In the meantime, consider this quote from Clark that’s in the Cohen column: “I don’t think it’s patriotic to dress up in a flight suit and prance around”. Clark can say something like this with conviction and authority. Dean can’t. And in what is likely to be a very tough election for the Democrats, they’re going to need all the conviction and authority they can get in this area.
Call it the “flight deck test”, a close cousin to the “Ohio test” (which candidate can carry Ohio?) Which candidate can most effectively hold Bush up to ridicule for his disgraceful flight deck “mission accomplished” episode? Let’s face it: that man’s name is not Howard Dean.

David Brooks’ piece in The New York Times today on “Bush Democrats” just isn’t terribly convincing about the alleged political salience of this phenomenom.
Consider the kind of evidence Brooks brings to bear–chiefly about splits in the Democratic ranks on Iraq-related poll questions and unity among Republicans. But that kind of result depends on which Iraq questions you look at.
For example, CBS News recently found that 74 percent of Democrats thought the result of the war with Iraq was not worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq, compared to just 14 percent who thought it was. Pretty unified. And 68 percent of Republicans thought the Iraq war’s result was worth cost, compared to 21 percent who didn’t. Also pretty unified.
This kind of polarization is actually more common than not on polling questions these days–as many analysts have commented–and Brooks appears to have wilfully overlooked it in order to make his point.
Heck, you can even find examples that are the complete reverse of what Brooks points to. In the last ABC News poll, Democrats overwhelmingly believe (79 percent to 19 percent) that, given the goals and costs of the Iraq war, the level of military casualties has been unacceptable. But the Republicans, they’re split! While 54 percent think the level of casualties has been acceptable, a healthy 40 percent think it has not.
So should we start talking about Dean (or Clark) Republicans?
DR doesn’t think so, but it does suggest the problems with Brooks’ logic and evidence.
Brooks also mentions that 20 percent of Democrats say they’ll vote for Bush in a hypothetical Bush-Dean matchup, while Republicans are much more unified around their prospective nominee. But that’s hardly suprising, given that Republicans know exactly who their nominee will be, while Democrats do not–in fact, many of them have not yet really focused on the upcoming presidential contest. In these circumstances, 20 percent support from Democrats is not all that impressive–especially given the unrealistically large lead Bush has in this particular horse race question (20 points). The race will wind up being a lot tighter and Bush’s Democratic support will fall commensurately.
Finally, in the same poll cited by Brooks (the CBS News poll linked to above), just 11 percent of Democrats say they’d vote for Bush against “the Democratic candidate”. That’s probably a more reasonable estimate of Bush’s current Democratic support. And how much support did Bush actually get from Democrats in 2000? You guessed it: 11 percent.
The more things change…..

That’s the real message of two polls of Hispanics recently released by the Pew Hispanic Center (PHC). Of course, some of the presss, in their typically bone-headed way, have played up the fact that in the second PHC poll, taken in early January, Bush polls better among Hispanics than he did in the first PHC poll, conducted in early December, before Saddam was captured.
Wow. That’s a shocker. Bush got a bounce among Hispanics, just like he did among the general public. But does that mean he’s in a “strong position” with Hispanics, as an AP story on these polls put it?
Hardly. A review of the data from the PHC polls indicates that Bush is in an amazingly weak position with Hispanics and, as his bounce dissipates, is likely to be facing a very skeptical Hispanic electorate during the 2004 election campaign.
Take the issue of Iraq. In the December 8-11 PHC poll, Bush’s approval rating on Iraq among Hispanics was just 32 percent, with 57 percent disapproval. By comparison, in the public poll closest to the dates of the December PHC poll (CBS News/New York Times, December 10-13), Bush’s approval rating on Iraq among the general public was 45 percent approval/47 percent disapproval.
In addition, Hispanics in the December PHC poll endorsed by 15 points the proposition that “the Bush administration deliberately misled the American public about how big a threat Iraq was to the US before the war began (53 percent to 38 percent). And a slight plurality of Hispanics (47 percent to 45 percent) said the US made “the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq”. That compares to an analogous question in the CBS News poll mentioned above, where, by 64 percent to 28 percent, the general public said we did “the right thing in taking military action” and the exact same question in a mid-October Pew Research Center poll, where, by 60 percent to 33 percent, the public said we made the right decision in using military force against Iraq.
Finally, by 60 percent to 31 percent, Hispanics in the December PHC poll said the war in Iraq was not worth “the toll it has taken in American lives and other kinds of costs’. This compares to a 54 percent to 39 percent not-worth-it verdict among the general public on an analogous question in the CBS News poll.
In short, this poll documents that Hispanics, far from being patriotically enamored of the Iraq war, as has been erroneously asserted by some pundits, are actually far more critical of it than the general public. In fact, even in the January poll, since the post-Saddam capture increases in positive feelings about the Iraq situation among Hispanics are about equal to increases observed among the general public, Hispanics remain much more critical about Iraq than the public as a whole.
The same basic story can be observed in Hispanics’ views about the economy: more negative views than the public as a whole before Saddam’s capture, then an upward bounce in economic evaluations after Saddam’s capture–but no larger an upward bounce than other polls have captured among the general public. As a result, despite the bounce, Hispanics continue to be signifcantly more negative than the public as a whole about the economy.
One last note on these polls. In the December poll, Bush’s re-elect number among Hispanics was an abysmal 27 percent, compared to 56 percent for the Democratic candidate. That’s a 29 point gap and with any reasonable allocation of undecideds that gap should, if anything, be considered wider. By comparison, in 2000, Bush received 35 percent support among Hispanics and lost them by 27 points.
And we’re supposed to believe Bush is in a “strong position” with Hispanics? Maybe in some other universe.

Democrats tend to have a hard time dealing with Dean in all his complex glory: the good (he’s a terrific candidate in some ways and is helping remake the party in ways that are absolutely necessary); the bad (he’s got a number of very serious political liabilities that might make it difficult to carry swing states like Ohio); and the ugly (not only that he’s more likely than, say, Clark or Gephardt to get creamed).
One Democrat who doesn’t have this problem is Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic. Cohn, a Dean supporter, is nonetheless well aware of his dark side, so to speak, and lays it all out in a terrific article, “The Case for Dean“. Highly recommended.
For those Dean opponents who have a hard time seeing the ways Dean walks in the light, DR recommends Nick Confessore’s article in the new Washington Monthly, “The Myth of the Democratic Establishment“. Confessore shows how the Dean phenomenom is, in a sense, an inevitable response by the party rank-and-file to a party establishment and infrastructure that are not only not effective, they’re barely even there. Thus, if Dean did not exist, the party, if it really wanted to move forward, would have to invent him.
But, of course, they don’t have to. He’s here and all Democrats should realize that, whether or not he gets nominated and, if nominated, whether or not he gets elected, his campaign has made a signal contribution to revitalizing the Democratic party. As for those who would have preferred he’d stayed in Vermont and never achieved such prominence–in the immortal words of Marion Barry: Get over it.

The latest Gallup poll measured Bush’s approval rating at 60 percent. How should we interpret this?
USA Today said on its website: “Bush Approval Rating Grows”. Not reallly. In fact, compared to Gallup’s last poll, his approval rating has actually declined by 3 points, giving back almost half of the bounce he received from Saddam’s capture (a trend which DR predicted would quickly emerge unless the situation on the ground in Iraq improved dramatically–which, of course, it hasn’t).
Well, but how about the fact, as Gallup points out, Bush’s approval rating at this point is higher than recent presidents seeking re-election like Bush I and even Bill Clinton?
The problem here (even accepting the level indicated by Gallup, which has been running high relative to other public polls) is trend. Bush’s 60 percent rating is being captured post-bounce, in the midst of a downward trend where most of that bounce could easily disappear. This, in fact, has been the pattern throughout the entire Bush administration–LiberalOasis calls it the “Bush Cycle”–where an approval spike generated by a Big Event (9/11, the invasion of Iraq, the capture of Saddam) is followed by a long period of decline where he loses support at the rate of 2-3 points a month.
If this pattern repeats itself, Bush’s post-Saddam capture increase in his approval rating will vanish in another month or two and he’ll be back at 50 percent and headed down in another couple of months (sooner in other polls because, again, Gallup’s approval ratings have been running high).
If that happens, then Bush doesn’t look so good. The last two presidents to get re-elected (Reagan and Clinton) had approval ratings that went up in the first half of the election year. The last two presidents to get defeated for re-election (Carter and Bush I) had approval ratings that went down over the same period. Which of these categories Bush II belongs to is likely to be more predictive of his fate than the current level of his approval rating.

No question about it, Wes Clark’s campaign is starting to get some traction. First, he’s moved past John Kerry into second place in the latest ARG New Hampshire tracking poll. Since December 26-28, Kerry has lost 6 points and Clark has gained 4, resulting in the switch in their relative positions.
And then the latest Gallup national poll has Clark closing the gap with Dean dramatically among Democrats and Democratic leaners. Right now, Dean is ahead of Clark by just 24 percent to 20 percent (and this is the first time Clark has been in the 20’s since October 6-8). As recently as December 11-14, Dean was ahead of Clark by 21 points, 31 percent to 10 percent–so Clark has doubled his support in the last three weeks, while Dean has lost a quarter of his. And this last poll was taken before Clark’s attractive tax plan was released and therefore does not reflect any boost he may be receiving from that announcement.
Not too shabby. A second place finish in New Hampshire and some victories on February 3 and he’s off to the races.
In light of his progress, this seems a good time to review DR’s November 1 recommendations on “How Clark Could Win the Nomination“. How’s he doing?
1. Work the Electability Angle. Check and double check, with the release of his tax plan.
2. Break Through in the South. That does indeed seem to be his plan and he appears to be in a good position to do so.
3. Go for the Noncollege Crowd. We lack good data here, but DR’s sense is that Clark’s support, especially relative to Dean, is drawn disproportionately from this group.
4. Go for independents and Republicans. We really lack good data here, but Clark is, in DR’s view, positioning himself well to receive support from this not-insignificant bloc of Democratic primrary voters.
5. Work the Arithmetic. In terms of superdelegates, he isn’t doing terribly well at this point. But, if Matthew Yglesias is right and superdelegates tend to follow the political winds, perhaps the time is now right for Clark to start lining up additional support from these quarters.
So far then, Clark seems to more-or-less be on DR’s wavelength in terms of how he’s conducting his campaign. Good luck to him. Wish, though, he had another signature issue besides his tax plan on the domestic front that could help wash away that “laundry list” feel one often gets from his domestic pronouncements.
Is that going to happen? Well: let’s ask him!
(from an online chat earlier today on Clark04.com that DR participated in)
– Ruy Teixeira of “Donkey Rising” asks The tax plan you just released can fairly be characterized as a signature issue for your campaign. Is there another dometic issue you might give the same kind of treatment to? If so, what is it? Education (a personal favorite of mine)? Health care? Retirement?
– Ruy, I have so many issues that I feel strongly about….we’re in a health care crisis, and I want to see us move our system into the promotion of wellness and good health, not just treating illnesses….we neeed comprehensive diagnoastic and preventive care. Then there’s education, and I am an especially strong believer in preswchool education for all children, and we’re going to make that happen…and then there’s the problem of jobs, and this may be the biggest challenge of all…we simply have to create jobs in this country…and thus far we’ are failing to create enough jobs….Alll that’s important to me. Wes
DR’ll take that as a “not really” or perhaps an “I know what you mean, but we haven’t figured that one out yet”. Sounds like the Clark campaign’s got a bit of work to do in that department.
But, overall it’s been a pretty darn good three weeks for Clark. And it’ll be very interesting to see what happens next.

Wes Clark’s receiving a lot of good publicity for his new tax plan. And well he should. It’s a good plan that could go a long way toward addressing the Democrats’ vulnerabilities on taxes and might prove quite popular with general election voters, who, DR has heard, tend to look favorably on middle class tax cuts.
Clark should also, of course, strengthen his electability case over Howard Dean with Democratic primary voters. Now, he not only has superior national security credentials but also a clear advantage over Dean on the tax issue.
Dean, for his part, seems determined to stick with his Mondale-ian insistence on taking back all the Bush tax cuts and therefore, in effect, raising taxes on the middle class. This is in spite of a boatload of polling evidence showing that, while rescinding all of the Bush tax cuts is quite unpopular–even with Democrats–repealing those for the rich and leaving the middle class tax cuts in place is viewed far more favorably.
Time for Dean to stop being stubborn on this one and embrace the kind of approach Clark is advocating. Middle class tax cuts: try ’em, you’ll like ’em! And winding up like Walter Mondale–you wouldn’t like that at all.