I notice the dearth of polling lately. Think there's an unspoken desire...

[Brotherjohn]

... to not have the prez look TOO bad?

I mean, there's not much that can be done, but I think if many polls had been released in the last couple of weeks, a couple at least would have had Bush polling down into the 30's (what with ridiculous gas prices and snubbing gold-star moms and all).

Other than Gallup/CNN/USA Today repeating their earlier 45% approval number in a mid-month update (Gallup can always be counted on to have among the highest Bush numbers), the last major poll to be released was the Newsweek one, nearly two weeks ago (with Bush at 42%). http://pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm

Today, Rasmussen had a press release pointing out that Bush's approval was at an all-time low (for their poll) of 43% for two days straight... but that's a daily tracking poll (smaller sample, etc.).

So where have the big polls been? Are they hiding out while Bush is hiding out? I want to see some numbers in the 30s! (b/c you know that's where they are)

[Autonomy]

1. Rule of thumb: Take Rassmussen's daily....

and subtract 5-8 points from Bush's approval rating. You will tend to get what a more accurate (1500+ N, over 3 days) poll usually gets. I've noticed this RoT to be accurate over the past year or more.

[Oerdin]

2. IT's no longer election season.

Thus the number of polls has decreased. The major polling companies still do monthly polls on most of the big politicians so there is no shortage of recent poll info.