The Election
It's a very political week. Now that the dust from the Iowa caucuses has settled, the focus turns to Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, with a short-term interruption for President Bush's State of the Union address tonight.
This is the time of the year when we will begin to see a steady increase in the number of Democratic candidates dropping out of the race for their party's nomination. The last man standing will make his acceptance speech in Boston at the Democratic convention this summer, and sally forth into the fall's campaign against George W. Bush.
All eyes are on New Hampshire right now, a strange state of affairs that occurs at this time every four years, and one that is totally out of proportion when considering the small number of delegates the state will actually end up sending to the Democratic convention. Here's how I look at it: Democrats (and news media) around the country use the early caucus and primary voters as a focus group of sorts, under the assumption that these voters are in a unique position to see the campaigners up close and personal, in a way not possible for those in other states. If one or two candidates seem to particularly impress the voters in the early states, then Democrats elsewhere usually take notice, and momentum for those candidates can begin to build. At least that's what usually happens.
We've already seen a couple of high-profile dropouts -- Florida Sen. Bob Graham and former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun -- and most observers agree that the Rev. Al Sharpton and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich have little chance of winning the nomination. Still, that leaves former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman as active and more or less viable candidates.
I think several of these candidates will abandon their quest after the New Hampshire primary next week, and the Feb. 3 round of primaries and caucuses -- in Delaware, South Carolina, Missouri, Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and North Dakota -- will undoubtedly produce more realignment. The determination of the Democratic nominee may be all over by early March.
State of the Union
Whoever wins the nomination will of course shift quickly to the campaign for the general election against Bush next fall, and that's where tonight's State of the Union address comes in. Bush will attempt to maximize one of the many benefits of an incumbent president running for re-election -- the chance to appear very presidential as he addresses a joint session of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, military luminaries, and of course, millions of Americans watching from their homes.
This year, Bush has already been building up to tonight's address with a series of pre-speech announcements of new initiatives, including his bold plan to send humans back to the moon and (ultimately) Mars, and his proposal to allow illegal immigrants to remain in this country legally if they take jobs that Americans don't want. Neither of these proposals, in and of themselves, will score a home run for the president -- which may be why he floated them early.
Most Americans are worried about the economic impact of immigration and aren't interested in allowing illegal immigrants to remain here legally. And although the idea of sending people back into space sounds good on the surface, most polling shows that support for such a venture quickly drops below the majority level once the public is reminded of the "billions and billions" (as the late astronomer Carl Sagan might say) it is going to cost.
In terms of his job approval rating, Bush will be addressing the nation from a somewhat weaker position than he was as recently as a few weeks ago. In Gallup's Jan. 12-15 poll, Bush's job approval rating has dropped to 53% -- an essential evaporation of the positive bump in approval he received from the capture of Saddam Hussein last December. Bush's current ratings are essentially back to where they were last fall, and also early in 2003, before he gained ground in approval as the nation went to war against Iraq.
From a longer-term perspective, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the 50%-to-55% range in job approval is about "normal" for Bush at this point -- an incumbent in an election year when partisan orientation is highly activated. It will be very important to monitor Bush's job approval rating as the year progresses. Bush's chances for re-election look good as long as his job approval rating stays above 50%, particularly later in the year, but he is in trouble if it slips below that point and remains there.
Just as Bush's job approval rating has slipped on the eve of his State of the Union address, so have several other indicators of the overall mood of the nation. Satisfaction with the way things are going in the country, at 55% as the year began, is now below the important 50% level, at 46%.
Similarly, the Jan. 12-15 poll shows a sharp drop in the percentage of Americans saying that the U.S. economy is getting better, from 66% in early January to just 53% now. This measure is quite sensitive, and quick movements up and down are not unusual. (The "getting better" number jumped from 41% to 54% between February and March in early 2002, and dropped from 47% to 31% over the course of several weeks later in the summer of 2002.)
The change in the public's ratings of the current economy has not been as dramatic -- 37% now rate the economy as excellent or good, compared to 43% in early January -- but the trend is in the same negative direction. Additionally, the percentage of Americans saying that the economy is the nation's top problem edged back up slightly in last week's survey, from 32% to 37%.
It's unclear what is causing these more negative assessments of the economy. Clearly, Americans are still concerned about jobs, and the media's relentless focus on the Democratic presidential candidates and their critiques of Bush and his handling of economic (and foreign) affairs certainly hasn't helped bolster optimism.
By all reports, Bush is keenly aware of the importance of the economy to his re-election bid, and there is little question that he will focus a considerable portion of his speech tonight on emphasizing how much better it is now than a year ago. According to some reports, Bush will also announce a new initiative involving job training at community colleges to help address the jobs situation in the country. How well this proposal will sit with the public remains to be seen, although it is likely that Democrats will attack it as not going far enough in addressing the jobs issue. At any rate, a Gallup analysis released last week suggested that State of the Union addresses often make little difference in a president's job approval rating, so it is not out of the question that we won't see much change at all in our key measures in the weeks ahead.
The Jan. 12-15 Gallup Poll highlights one additional positive and one additional negative for Bush, which he may potentially address in his speech. Americans are very dissatisfied with the state of the moral and ethical climate in the United States today. This certainly plays to Bush's advantage as he attempts to motivate his core base of Republican voters, who tend to be very religious and very conservative. On the other hand, 61% of Americans say they would like to see major business corporations have less influence in the nation than they do today. That's a Bush weakness; most polling shows the public closely identifies Bush with the interests of big business. Undoubtedly, he will attempt to deflect those perceptions in his speech tonight.
Life Satisfaction
It's always useful to point out that Americans appear to be much happier when we ask them about things close to home than when we ask them about how well things are going "out there" across the country. While just 46% of the public is satisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time, 76% are satisfied with the way things are going in their local communities. And when asked to rate conditions in the United States using a scale ranging from 0 (the "worst possible situation") to 10 (the "best possible situation"), only 53% use a number between 6 and 10. But 73% give their own personal lives a 6 to 10 rating on the same scale.
Congress
Congress is back in Washington not only to get together for Bush's State of the Union address tonight, but also to get back to business and to pick up where they left off before the long holiday recess. The Senate, in particular, will have to deal with an omnibus spending measure that the House has already passed.
There's a bit of good news for Congress in Gallup's Jan. 12-15 poll; congressional job approval is up slightly, from 43% in December to 48% today. That approval rating is not great; it's been higher many times since Sept. 11, but it's an anomaly of sorts given that the public seems to have become more negative, rather than more positive, on many other measures.
Democrats are also on a slight roll at the moment, perhaps as a result of the heavy Democratic skew in news coverage as the primary season unfolds. Asked which party can better handle the most important problem facing the country, Americans are slightly more likely to say Democrats than Republicans, by a 46% to 39% margin.
Abortion
Thursday marks the 31st anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision on abortion. There will be a March for Life in Washington, D.C., and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton will be headlining the NARAL Pro-Choice America Anniversary Dinner in Washington, D.C.
The public's attitudes toward abortion have not changed a great deal in recent years. Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned, nor do they support a constitutional amendment that would ban abortion altogether. At the same time, Americans do favor a number of restrictions on abortion, including a ban on third-trimester abortions and a ban on the procedure called "partial-birth" abortion. Only about a fourth of Americans believe that the decision to have an abortion should be left totally to the woman's choice, regardless of circumstances.
Most of our studies also show that abortion is a low priority issue for the average American in the coming presidential election.