President Bush
President George W. Bush continued his extraordinary push for public acceptance of his policy in Iraq on Monday with a White House press conference. That came on the heels of a primetime address to the nation from the Oval Office on Sunday, which, in turn, followed other major speeches on Iraq that Bush has delivered since Thanksgiving. Additionally, Vice President Dick Cheney made a special trip to Iraq to congratulate the Iraqis after their relatively peaceful election last week.
Much of this effort -- according to news reports -- is the result of a well-thought-out plan on the administration's part to shore up domestic public opinion on the war and to improve Bush's own job approval ratings.
But not all has gone according to plan. The weekend's news coverage was dominated by fallout from The New York Times' revelation that the president had authorized secret wiretapping of Americans without a court warrant at various points since Sept. 11, 2001. The administration claims the wiretapping was necessary and deemed lawful by the attorney general and White House counsel.
The administration is already planning for the president's State of the Union address in January, as the effort to influence public opinion continues. But with Christmas looming, there will likely be a hiatus of sorts for a couple of weeks -- making it a good time to assess the overall pattern of public opinion in recent weeks.
The bottom line? It appears that the president's job approval ratings have stopped their downward slide, but there are no signs of a major uptick.
Bush's job approval rating averaged 44% in September, 41% in October, and 38% in three polls conducted in November before Thanksgiving (and before the beginning of the new public relations offensive). This deterioration was almost certainly -- as noted -- one of the proximate causes for all the Bush speeches.
Bush's job approval rating has averaged 42% across three December polls. The latest weekend CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll indicates that the president's overall approval rating is 41%, and his disapproval rating is 56%.
This can be interpreted as modest good news for the administration. The September-to-October-to-early-November decrease in the president's job approval ratings appears to have stopped. The not-so-good news is that the president is still essentially only back to where he was in October, and his most recent 41% approval rating is well below his 2005 average so far.
It's important to note, of course, that Gallup's weekend poll did not measure the effect -- if any -- of Bush's Sunday address or his Monday press conference. There probably won't be many national polls conducted between now and the end of the year -- meaning that it may be early 2006 before we get a handle on any lasting effects of the administration's recent public relations blitz.
Iraq
We find a similar pattern in terms of Americans' attitudes toward Iraq. There has been no further decline in the public's acceptance of the war in the last several weeks, and on a few measures, opinion has become slightly more positive. But -- again -- there are no signs of significant changes, and in many instances support for the war and optimism about the future are still lower than they have been at previous points this year.
The Dec. 16-18 poll shows that the reading on Gallup's classic "was the Iraq war a mistake" question has moved back up above the 50% level -- it's now at 52% after having dropped to 48% in a Dec. 9-11 poll. A majority of Americans (56%) continue to say Bush does not have a plan that will achieve victory for the United States in Iraq -- only two percentage points lower than in the Dec. 9-11 poll. This is essentially the same as measured in a one-night poll conducted on Nov. 30 after the president's speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. A majority of Americans (55%) also say that the war in Iraq is not part of the war on terrorism that began Sept. 11, 2001; this is the largest percentage to disagree with the connection between the two events across the six times Gallup has asked this question since August 2003.
Bush's job approval rating for handling the situation in Iraq is at 37%. This is down slightly from Gallup's Dec. 9-11 reading of 39%, but up from the low point of 32% measured in mid-September.
The percentage of Americans who say that the United States will probably or definitely win the war in Iraq has risen slightly from 46% a week ago and in early November to 49%.
The interpretation of these numbers is quite like interpreting the effect a major advertising campaign has on product sales. If sales stay flat, the advertising agency can argue that sales would have fallen without the advertising effort. In a similar fashion, the Bush administration may be pleased to note that Americans' attitudes on the war have stopped hemorrhaging. But, there are no signs, yet, of any sort of dramatic realignment of American attitudes on the Iraq situation.
Congressional Priorities
The president's recent focus on Iraq, if nothing else, is right in line with Americans' priorities. The Dec. 9-11 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll asked Americans how important it was for the president and Congress to address each of eight different issues in the new year -- the economy, terrorism, healthcare costs, Iraq, gas and home heating prices, immigration, controlling illegal immigration, and Social Security.
Fifty-nine percent said that the situation in Iraq was extremely important, essentially the same as the 58% who said that terrorism was extremely important. Both of these were at the top of the list, well above the next highest-rated issues -- healthcare costs (48%) and the economy (47%).
Despite the media attention given to immigration-related issues, illegal immigration and controlling immigration were at the bottom of the list of priorities.
Colts Winning Streak Snapped
The Indianapolis Colts lost their first game of the season Sunday to the San Diego Chargers -- thus missing out on becoming the first pro football team to go undefeated and untied since the Miami Dolphins 17-0 season in 1972.
This does not come as a great shock to many pro football fans (about 6 in 10 Americans). Asked in a Dec. 9-11 poll if they thought the Colts would go undefeated in the regular season and win the Super Bowl, 46% said yes, but 45% said no.
Election 2008
Not much change in the early reads on the 2008 presidential race. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton leads overwhelmingly among Democrats. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani leads among Republicans, followed not too far behind by Arizona Sen. John McCain and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
This trial-heat polls -- at this stage of the game -- to a significant degree reflect name identification. For example, Bill Clinton, Michael Dukakis, and Jimmy Carter were all obscure political figures two years before they captured their party's nominations. Indeed, some insiders are predicting that candidates such as Virginia Sen. George Allen on the Republican side and outgoing Virginia Gov. Mark Warner on the Democratic side are well positioned to make a run at the nomination despite their current obscurity. Both are receiving only single-digit percentages in the recent polls.
Additionally, although Republicans nationally seem to like Giuliani, some political observers are skeptical that a moderate Republican like Giuliani (who, for example, is pro-choice) could survive the often-brutal early primaries in which the GOP's conservative base plays a powerful role.
Christmas Spending
This is the last shopping week before Christmas and retailers continue to cross their fingers that, when the dust settles, this will have been a reasonably acceptable retail season.
Gallup's numbers now suggest that this year's Christmas spending should be about average -- not dramatically better than last year, but also not dramatically worse.
Gallup's Dec. 5-8 estimate of average Christmas spending is $840, which is up from November's $763 estimate. But the key to these numbers is year-to-year comparisons. And from that perspective, there appears to be little major change from 2004 to 2005. The November Gallup reading was up slightly -- but not significantly from last year's -- while the December reading is down slightly from last year's, again not significantly.
Christmas Nomenclature
The controversy over the appropriate phrase to use in greetings and displays at this time of year continues. The movement toward saying "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" is presumably designed to avoid offending those who are not Christians or do not celebrate Christmas.
I think we have to be somewhat careful in analyzing data relating to this topic. It is not surprising to find that the majority of Americans prefer the traditional "Merry Christmas" -- at least as measured by the response to this question: "As you may know, many stores and other public institutions now use the words 'Happy Holidays' or 'Season's Greetings' rather than 'Merry Christmas' in their displays and in their interactions with the public. Do you think this is a change for the better or a change for the worse?" A majority of 61% say that it's a change for the worse.
But the change is designed to protect the minority regardless of what the majority might think. So I think another question included in a recent Gallup survey is more telling. This question asked: "Does it bother you when stores use the words 'Merry Christmas' on their displays at this time of year instead of 'Happy Holidays' or 'Season's Greetings,' or not?" Only 3% of Americans say yes, suggesting that the use of "Christmas" doesn't offend even much of a minority of Americans. More telling, perhaps, is the finding that only 8% of non-Christians say that the use of the phrase, "Merry Christmas," bothers them. This suggests that more than 9 in 10 of the non-Christian minority in this country still are not bothered if stores use the traditional "Merry Christmas" greeting.
Movies
The Christmas holiday season is traditionally a big time for movies -- a time when movie studios hope to make a good deal of their year's revenues.
The average American attended four movies in the last year, but seeing movies in theaters is an essentially irrelevant behavior to a third of the public who claim to have attended no movies at all in the past 12 months. As Gallup Poll Assistant Editor Joe Carroll has pointed out in a recent analysis, this "none" percentage has stayed roughly the same since 1993 -- with the exception of 2002, when it dropped to 28%.
Not shockingly, younger people and those with higher incomes are most likely to attend movies. About two-thirds of those aged 65 and older report having attended no movies at all during the past year. Despite frequent conservative criticism of Hollywood types, there are no significant differences between Republicans and Democrats in the self-reported number of movies attended.