CBS Slants Bush Poll in Favor of Democrats Posted by Greg Sheffield on February 28, 2006 - 08:57. In its classic "fair and balanced" tradition, CBS slanted in favor of Democrats its poll that found Bush has a 34 percent approval rating and a 59 percent disapproval rating, an all-time high for a CBS poll. On the bottom of the PDF version of the poll (page 18) it says how many Democrats versus Republicans were contacted. "Total Republicans" contacted: 272 unweighted and 289 weighted. "Total Democrats" contacted: 409 unweighted and 381 weighted. "Total Independents" contacted: 337 unweighted and 348 weighted. Link
Enough to know that his logic is faulty. I'm glad he served our country for 20 years, and his opinion on military matters is certainly more informed than mine. But the logic of the suggestion is what I have the problems with. The majority of these attacks are coming from IED's. It is a land mine type situation where armor is more important than speed. They aren't dodging mortar fire, or artillery. Speed and quick turns would be important then. But a piece of road trapped with an IED will blow up no matter how fast you are going.
i don't know anything about newsbusters...and i'm certainly not gonna defend Bush...but it looks like this information that Newsbusters reported is taken right from the CBS poll data.
I saw the numbers on page 18 of the PDF file. If I were a Republican, I'd be ashamed to answer the poll questions too.
To everyone who says "who cares about his approval rating? It's not like he's running for re-election".. like it or not, Bush's approval ratings will have a major impact on the 2008 (both presidential, and congressional) races...
If I were a Republican, I'd be ashamed to admit that in public. I look at those numbers and see luke warm Republicans are now calling themselves Democrats.
Approval ratings matter greatly. If a president wishes to get his agenda through a good approval rating will help tremendously especially with his own party. You can see it now, if Bush's approval rating was high, no one but Dems. would be having a problem with the Port Security Issue. Harriet Meyers would have been confirmed. Republicans who differ with Bush will say so now that his pole numbers are low.
what do you mean by that? bush is a REAL texan. a good ol' boy. a "rancher". he likes to clear cedar brush and fish his stock pond at his "ranch". remember that he sold himself as a washington outsider? he's just like you and me - werent we all ivy league educated and skull and bones members. i dont know about you, but my grandfather was a senator and my father was ambassador, head of cia, vice president and president too. why, he's just like you and me. washington outsider my ass.
with all due respect, i think you have it backwards. low poll #'s are not the reason that his base is turning on him. the harriet miers and port issues are two big reasons why his poll #'s are slipping, especially among conservatives. its not the other way around. those are probably the 2 biggest issues that are forcing his "base" to turn against him. evangelicals felt betrayed by miers nomination and bush not initially selecting a strong pro-life judge and most conservatives feel betrayed by the port sale and the issue of putting buisness over security.
Interesting thought and not without merrit, but when the president has high approval numbers he tends to get his agenda through.
absolutely - i agree with you. what im saying is that in dubya's case, his series of missteps (miers and ports being only 2 of MANY) has resulted in low poll #'s, which in turn make it more difficult to get his agenda thru. the people who didnt like him before these 2 key issues still arent going to like him. its his base that he is loosing. its a vicious cycle - like that cocaine commerical - "i need to work more so i can buy more coke so i can work longer so i can buy more coke..." in the end, history will judge him on many criteria and one of the most important is the ability to push your agenda thru. remember social security reform anyone?
Doesn't really have anything to do with the thread but I found this interesting. Apparently Bush is thanking Bin Laden for helping him in the last election. ---------- Bush Says Bin Laden Tape Aided Re-Election http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060228130209990002&cid=2194
I guess the funniest thing about this is the assumption that bin Laden thought the American people would respond favorably to his endorsements. Bush is the best thing that ever happened to Al Qaeda, bin Laden knows it and you can be sure he was hella pleased with the 04 results.
Not to mention, low poll numbers don't exactly help when it comes to congressional and senate midterm elections. Still, people are incredibly fickle and can easily switch. I don't think it makes sense to put too much stock into poll numbers until we are close to an election. Although low poll numbers + an upcoming midterm election = non-existant agenda because no one wants to do anything to damage their reputation. Look for Congress to get absolutely nothing done for the rest of the year.
If the question is "Will Bush be re-elected" then sure these numbers don't matter. But that's kind of a stupid way to read these numbers if you ask me. On every single issue the American people clearly disagree with the way the president is running this country. On the most major issues, like Iraq, they disagree strongly. In fact, the president of the United States hasn't been at such extreme odds with the people he governs since Watergate. And he'll be in power for three more years with no sign of paying any attention to the intense, growing dissent. If that doesn't matter, well goodness gracious, what does?
