The Bush Bounce: Yes, This Time, It’s Real
That doesn’t mean it’s lasting, mind you, but as yet another poll puts Bush’s approval rating in the mid-40s, it’s no longer possible to ignore the trend. This time, it’s the Bloomberg/L.A. Times poll:
President Bush’s approval rating has reached its highest level since January, helping to boost the Republican Party’s image across a range of domestic and national security issues just seven weeks before this year’s midterm election, a new Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
The survey spotlights a continuing array of Republican vulnerabilities, but it also offers the first evidence in months that the GOP may be gaining momentum before November’s battle for control of Congress.
Democrats hold a lead in the poll, 49% to 39%, when registered voters are asked which party they intend to support for Congress this year. But that advantage may rest on softening ground: On virtually every comparison between the parties measured in the survey, Republicans have improved their position since early summer.
In particular, Republicans have nearly doubled their advantage when voters are asked which party they trust most to protect the nation against terrorism — the thrust of Bush’s public relations blitz in recent weeks.
November is fast approaching, and the Democrats have utterly failed to define the terms of the debate with their tepid “college loans, minimum wage” six-point disaster of an agenda. Perhaps sensing the imminent collapse of their midterm hopes, the flailing Dems are now attempting to move Iraq front and center again, and are walking right into the Rove trap:
Congressional Democrats plan to hold Iraq war hearings on Capitol Hill and around the country, turning an election spotlight on an issue much as the GOP did with immigration during the summer recess.
The Democrats’ will highlight the fact that they intend to go toe-to-toe with Republicans on the issue of national security, believing that this election cycle it can play to their advantage rather than to their detriment as it has in elections past.
Thus, with poll after poll giving Bush and the Republicans a substantial lead on the security question, the Democrats head into the home stretch emphasizing…security. Is it any wonder these guys don’t win elections?…
I must say that from a purely objective point of view the Democratic strategy for this November is terrible. As far as I can tell it consists of being vague and hoping for the worst. Unfortunately, for them I doubt it will work: if things get better, of course, it helps the Republicans, but if things get worse, while the Republicans can say, “we need to get tougher,” what will the Democratic say? We need to get vaguer?
He had to respond to dems or screw himself. Maybe everybody should say yes; like Bill Clinton.
I wonder if Rangel and Pelosi’s defense of Bush against Chavez has anything to do with this.
I think it’s a “my mother drunk or sober” thing. He may be a jerk, but he’s our jerk.
I am not surprised in that I saw a blogger back in February state that the polling would tighten in September for multiple reasons 1) that the American people were not engaged 2) Rasmussen and the like oversampled every poll all year by 10-15 percent Democrat 3) the Republicans are not staying home to teach congresspeople a lesson they know Pelosi, Rangel and the other wackos’s would destroy all that is good about this Country.
It is time for people to wake up. Polls show what the pollsters wish them to show “at that moment”.
Fact is we had terrorists, not just knock on our door on 9/11, but crashed through our door and killed our family.
George Bush woke up, the rest of us simply turned over and went back to sleep.
Wake up!
Put it in smaller terms, if someone broke into YOUR house and killed YOUR family, would you demand law enforcement hunt them down or find em and “talk” to them? Would you expect those that aided them, hid them, fed them, clothed them and funded them to face justice also? Or would you “ask” them to stop helping?
America is OUR house, each state is a room in that house….. The terrorists broke into our house and killed 3,000 people…
George Bush woke up and did what I would hope any one of us would do… we started hunting, we gave them a choice, with us or against us in a war on terror.
When are the rest of us going to wake up?
I might not agree with every single decision made, but I back them because “I” am not the one that had to make that decision, Bush was.
For the record, I am a democrat and have been all my life, I did not vote for George Bush, but if given the option today… I would vote for him in a heartbeat.
He stuck by his guns, despite the “polls”, he stayed consistent depsite the “polls”, he showed backbone and spine, despite the “polls”.
Wake up America and either stand behind one of the few people that is trying to keep us as safe as we can be, or shut up, sit down and stay the hell out of his way. Let him do the job that others are incapable or unwilling to do.
Wake up, this is not a dream or nightmare, this IS a war and we did not start it, but we damn well better be the ones standing at the end of it.
Wake up!
Poll after poll? What are you talking about?
You have the polls done during the 9/11 commemorations that did show a minor, transient bounce. Rasmussen showed it clearly – from 41 to 47 in a few days. Problem is that it went down to 40 immediately after. Gallup polled during that time. Now LATimes shows 44, for the same time period that NYT and Pew show 37.
Sorry, but not real yet.
‘I think it’s a “my mother drunk or sober” thing. He may be a jerk, but he’s our jerk.’
Peter, Peter – you uncontrolled BDS is showing, better cover it up before it consumes us all.