America's Mood
Despite the ceaseless cascade of news in recent weeks about President Bush, Social Security, Iraq, the Middle East, and the economy, I don't see much change in the American public's overall mood and attitudes. It's as if Americans are in a holding pattern of sorts, waiting for some cataclysmic or dramatic news to break them out of their current view of the world.
The public's mood isn't great at the moment. Just 45% of Americans in a Feb. 21-24 Gallup Poll said they are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time, almost identical to earlier readings in February and January. This satisfaction measure has been quite stable for the last five months.
Bush dominated the news last week with his trip to Europe and meetings with a variety of European leaders, including the highly visible discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Image after image of the president standing with various foreign dignitaries flooded the television airwaves as the week progressed. One would certainly be excused for assuming the president's job approval ratings might go up.
But they didn't -- at least not significantly. Our weekend CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll (conducted Feb. 25-27) puts Bush's job approval rating at 52%, similar to most of the other six job approval ratings we recorded this year. Only once, in a Feb. 4-6 poll, did the president's ratings move up more significantly to 57%, but that increase was short-lived.
We asked the public in the weekend poll to rate Bush on five specific areas of performance. He's not doing particularly well on any of them except for terrorism, which has consistently been his greatest strength since the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Perhaps most significantly, Bush's approval rating on handling Social Security has dropped to 35%, the lowest score he has received on this dimension since Gallup began measuring it when Bush first took office. Bush's current Social Security approval rating is also down from 43% and 41% in two previous polls in February.
Despite the highly visible European trip, only 50% of Americans approve of how Bush is handling foreign affairs, little changed from early February and January readings. His approval rating on handling Iraq is at 45%, and on the economy is 48%.
The Economy
This past week's economic reports were generally positive, particularly the government's report of the gross domestic product -- up in the last quarter of 2004 to a 3.8% annualized rate.
But Gallup's measures of public perceptions of the economy haven't changed substantially. We conducted more than 2,000 interviews measuring the public's attitudes about the economy across two surveys in February. The results? Thirty-nine percent of those interviewed say economic conditions are excellent or good -- not much changed from January or December. (Although if one looks hard at the data, there is a slight upward trend in this number compared with several points last year.)
There are mixed sentiments about the direction of the economy, with 45% of Americans saying the economy is getting better and 46% saying it is getting worse. This reading on the direction of the economy is fluid, tending to move around quite a bit more than ratings of the current economy. For example, at one point last October, there was a net negative difference of -11 percentage points between the public's "getting worse" and "getting better" sentiments. The high point for the last 14 months came at the beginning of last year, when three consecutive polls showed a majority of Americans felt the economy was getting better.
From a different perspective, there are slight signs of an increase in positivity among investors, but nothing dramatic. The just-released UBS/Gallup Index of Investor Optimism for February is at 82, up slightly from 76 in January and 79 in December, but still down from a year ago. An analysis by Gallup's Dennis Jacobe finds that when presented with a list of possible economic problems, investors remain most concerned about rising fuel costs.
There's a good deal of so-called "hard" economic data being released by the government this week, with a lot of attention focused on Friday's release of the February employment report. But there's no need to wait until Friday to figure out what rank-and-file Americans think about the job market. Only 38% of Americans interviewed in February think now is a good time to find a quality job, while 58% say it is not. There has been a slight uptick in optimism about the job market among those who are employed or looking for work, from 37% who said it was good time to find a quality job in early February to 43% later in the month. We'll be measuring perceptions of the job market again next week and will be able to ascertain if there are signs of a substantive increase in bullish sentiment.
The Pope
The health of Pope John Paul II is no doubt of great concern to the 1.1 billion Catholics around the world, but also to many non-Catholic interested bystanders. The pope has become a revered figure among all Americans; according to Gallup's weekend poll, 78% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the pontiff, including a 73% favorable rating among non-Catholics. Among Catholics, the pope's favorable rating is 93%, the highest of the three times we have measured it over the last three years.
How will history judge Pope John Paul II? Catholics are quite positive in response to that question. Almost 4 in 10 (38%) say he will be remembered as one of the greatest popes in history, and another 26% say he will be remembered as a great pope, but not one of the greatest. Twenty-two percent say he will go down in history as a good pope, while just 13% say he will be remembered as average or below average.
Just because Catholics have positive feelings about the pope doesn't mean they agree with his stances on church policies. About a third say the pope's policies have been too conservative.
It's clear that the pope most likely will stay in office until he dies, as opposed to leaving office as a result of his deteriorating health. (The last pope to willingly resign was Celestine V in 1294.) American Catholics seem to be split on the issue, with 51% agreeing the pope should remain in office until he dies and 43% saying he should resign now for health reasons.
Election 2008
Believe it or not, the first primaries of the 2008 presidential election are now less than three years away. Perhaps because there will be an open seat in '08, speculation about the race at this early juncture seems more intense than I recall from previous years.
Many observers believe all of this focus on 2008 is premature. Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz opined on Monday, "The Hillary obsession reflects a broader journalistic impulse to debate and sometimes predict the future." Kurtz makes the obligatory point that polling conducted this long before a presidential election is often totally off the mark.
That's certainly true, particularly in terms of Democrats, who have a habit of nominating individuals who are little-known and little-thought-about three years before the primaries (including Jimmy Carter in 1976, Michael Dukakis in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992, and John Kerry in 2004).
Still, the fact that the race will inevitably look a lot different in 2008 than it does now does not obviate the value of examining where things stand at this early point. Journalists (and pollsters) are focusing on 2008 because it is interesting not just to them, but also to the public at large. I don't think Americans are stupid enough to assume that just because a potential nominee is ahead in the polls right now that the person will automatically become the candidate. But I do think Americans are quite interested anyway.
The focus on New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in particular reflects the public's long-standing fascination with her (and her husband), and also I think reflects interest in the fact that Clinton could become the first female president in U.S. history.
Clinton is certainly the nation's most famous female elected official ever, and one of the best-known American politicians of any gender around the world. Although she demurs when asked about her 2008 plans (in part because it makes sense for potential nominees to hold back on their announcements of presidential ambitions, and in part because she has a 2006 Senate race to get through first), it is clear to most observers that she is carefully considering a bid in '08.
Clinton is clearly the front-runner for the Democratic nomination at this point, a fact confirmed by two Gallup Polls and a variety of polls conducted by other firms in recent months. Our analysis also shows Clinton has a potential edge among women and younger voters, which could make the race that much more interesting. According to this past weekend's poll, for example, 60% of women have a favorable opinion of Clinton compared with just 46% of men.
Healthcare
A new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation reinforced a finding Gallup data have underscored for quite some time: the image of the healthcare industry is in big trouble.
The Kaiser survey shows Americans are suspicious of pharmaceutical companies and believe they put profits ahead of concern for patients. At the same time, the poll indicates Americans agree that prescription drugs are very valuable in terms of improving and maintaining health. In other words, Americans appreciate having drugs that are beneficial to their health, but believe the for-profit companies that develop and distribute those drugs essentially get in the way of better health.
An August 2004 Gallup Poll asked Americans for their impressions of a variety of business and industry sectors. Guess which industries are second and third from the bottom of the list? The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. Only 31% of Americans have a positive image of pharmaceutical companies and 33% have a positive image of the healthcare industry. Only the oil and gas industry has a more negative image, while 22 other industry sectors received higher marks. (The computer and restaurant industries topped the list.)