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Historical lows for a second term president is showinf the lack of mesmerism. They keep at it but as far as the polls are concerned:
Bush's Poll Position Is Worst on Record
Second Terms are Tough, and No President Has Banked Less Political Capital
for the Fights Ahead
By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, April 11, 2005; 8:29 AM
With apologies to George Tenet, the first 100 days of President Bush's
second term have been no slam-dunk.
How rough has it been? Bush has the lowest approval rating of any president
at this point in his second term, according to Gallup polls going back to
World War II.
Bush's erosion of support among independents in particular has helped bring
his overall approval rating down to 45 percent. Forty-nine percent
disapprove of his performance.
Compare Bush's Gallup numbers taken in late March to poll numbers taken at
the same point in the presidencies of the six previous men who served two
terms:
Clinton: 59 percent approval versus 35 percent disapproval
Reagan: 56 percent versus 37 percent disapproval
Nixon: 57 percent versus 34 percent
Johnson: 69 percent versus 21 percent
Eisenhower: 65 percent versus 20 percent
Truman: 57 percent versus 24 percent
-Snip-
True enough, Bush's numbers weren't all that high to begin with. In the last
Gallup poll before the election, he was at 48 percent approval to 47 percent
disapproval -- yet he still won and helped his party in the process.
But second terms are often more difficult than first terms. In addition to
administration scandals, the re-elected president's party often loses seats
in the mid-term congressional elections. Bush will need a higher approval
rating if he hopes to avoid the "Sixth Year Itch."
Only 38 percent of respondents said they believed Bush had done an excellent
or good job in his first 100 days, compared to 58 percent who believed he
had done a fair or poor job, according to a poll conducted March 31 to April
1 by Westhill Partners and the National Journal's Hotline.
People will analyze the data differently. But here are a few things that I
believe have hurt the administration in the last few months:
* Overconfidence: The president beamed with confidence after his November
defeat of John Kerry. After the election, Bush told a news conference, "I
earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend
it. It is my style." This statement was certainly no surprise, given that
Bush governed as though he had a clear mandate even after losing the popular
vote by a half-million to Al Gore in 2000. But the reality of Bush's victory
in 2004 was that he won with 50.7 percent of the popular vote to Sen. John
F. Kerry's 48.2 percent. You'd have to back to at least the early 1800s to
find a president who has been re-elected by a closer margin.
The nation remains nearly evenly divided, yet Bush came out of the blocks as
if he'd won by a Reaganesque landslide.
that
the public's typical second-term disillusionment began so early. In one
sense, this matters little because Bush will never run for another election.
But it could be an early sign of trouble for his party, especially when you
consider that the Republican-run Congress's approval rating has dropped to its lowest point in nearly a decade, with only 40 percent or fewer approving of the job it is doing, according to several recent polls.
Among political professionals, the campaign season runs continuously. So even though there's little news about it in the nation's papers and
broadcasts, both parties are already in the thick of candidate recruitment for the 2006 midterm congressional elections. Much is at stake. Elections in the sixth year of a presidency are typically perilous territory for the party of the president in power.
"There have been six of these elections in the post-World War II era (1950,
1958, 1966, 1974, 1986, and 1998). The average loss for the White House in
these sixth year elections has been six Senate seats -- double the overall
midterm average loss of three seats," wrote Larry J. Sabato, the director of
the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, in a recent analysis.
-Snip-
© 2005 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
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