Congress is out of session and President Bush is on a working vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. But there is no rest for Democratic presidential candidates vying for their party's presidential nomination. All nine major candidates will be appearing in Chicago today at an AFL CIO-sponsored presidential forum, hoping to win the groups' coveted labor endorsement.
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman continues to be the top vote-getter when Gallup asks registered Democrats whom they want to win their party's nomination next year. But Howard Dean continues to monopolize media coverage of the race. Dean is on the cover of both TIME and Newsweek this week, and he has been profiled extensively in almost every major newspaper and television news outlet.
Despite all this coverage, Dean has made only modest increases among Gallup's national samplings of Democrats. He polled only in the single-digit range for most of the year, before finally pulling up to 11% in the latest July 25-27 poll. Still, Dean trails not only Lieberman, but also Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Congressman Dick Gephardt of Missouri.
In some ways, these national numbers are not as relevant as are horse race standings in the key states in which there will be early primaries. Recent polling suggests that Dean is doing well in his neighboring state of New Hampshire, and a new Des Moines Register poll shows Dean in the lead among those likely to vote in Iowa's Democratic caucuses next year. If Dean were to win in those two states, his national standing among Democrats would almost certainly begin to surge upward.
More generally, Gallup data suggest that Bush continues to lead a hypothetical Democratic challenger in our latest head-to-head matchup, 49% to 40% among registered voters nationwide. Last week's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll pitted Bush against three potential Democratic nominees and Bush beat all three: Lieberman by 19 points, Kerry by 15 points, and Dean by 22 points.
Recent in-depth Gallup analysis reveals fascinating demographic differences in the potential vote for Bush versus the Democratic candidate.
It's clear that Republicans will overwhelmingly tend to vote for Bush, Democrats for the Democratic candidate, and independents will split somewhere in the middle. Beyond political party, however, Bush's constituency is built around white men, people who attend church frequently, those with mid-range levels of education, and people living in the South.
The Democratic candidate's support will come disproportionately from blacks, to a lesser degree Hispanics, those with low levels of income, women, people with postgraduate college degrees, and those who rarely attend church.
California Recall Election
Perhaps the most fascinating political drama at the moment is being played out in California, where Democratic Gov. Gray Davis is now subject to recall in an Oct. 7 election (if it is not derailed by Davis' legal appeals to the California Supreme Court). The complex ballot will ask Californians to vote "yes" or "no" to the recall, and then to choose among a list of potential replacement candidates that conceivably could contain more than 200 names. If the majority votes "yes" on the recall, the candidate from the list with the highest number of votes will be the next governor.
There has been criticism of the recall effort in California, with some observers complaining that the democratic system is weakened if elected officials can be turned out between elections if voters decide they don't like how they are performing.
But our polling suggests that the public is just fine with the process. Seventy-four percent of Americans say it's a good idea for the people to be able to recall elected state officials solely on the basis of their performance. In fact, 31% of Americans say they would like to recall the governor of their state if they could.
President Bush and the Economy
As noted, Bush is settling in for a month's vacation at his Crawford ranch just to the west of Waco -- although he will fly out periodically for various fund-raising events across the country. Bush's latest job approval rating is at 58%, roughly where it was earlier this year before the Iraq war. The lowest job approval rating for Bush's term so far has been 51%, measured in early September 2001, just before the terrorist attacks.
Although the major focus of the news media continues to be international situations like Iraq and Liberia, there is little question that the average American is focused on the economy. Economic issues constitute the No. 1 problem facing the nation according to our data, and all indications are that the economy will be a major determinant of the outcome of next year's presidential election.
The Bush re-election team, cognizant of these facts of life, last week sent Treasury Secretary John Snow, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao across the country to talk about the economy and what the Bush administration is doing to fix it.
Undoubtedly, most Americans focus first and foremost on jobs when they think about the economy. But there is also the looming deficit -- an issue the Democratic candidates are beginning to use against Bush.
One problem with the deficit as a campaign issue is that most of us (and probably most economists) can't quantify the exact impact of the fact that the United States is spending more than it takes in. Most Americans don't see the deficit having a direct impact on their lives on a daily basis, while they know that things like tax cuts, prescription drugs for seniors, and Social Security have much more immediate impacts. Furthermore, many Americans have lived through periods of time during which the deficit has been very high, and -- quite obviously -- the country has survived.
This may help explain why in the latest Gallup Poll, just 3% of Americans spontaneously mentioned the deficit when asked to name the most important problem facing the nation.
Certainly, the deficit has the potential to be a political issue. Ross Perot made reducing the deficit the centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 1992, and ultimately received 19% of the popular vote for his efforts (one of the largest third-party candidate votes in history). Indeed, in sharp contrast to the current situation, the deficit was seen as the most important problem facing the nation at various points in both 1990 and 1996.
Even now, when we remind Americans about the deficit, 20% feel obliged to say it represents a crisis and another 57% say it is a major problem for the country.
Bush has been addressing the problem of the deficit by emphasizing that his tax cuts will -- in the long run -- reduce the deficit because they will generate economic activity and hence more revenue to pay down the debt.
That's not very convincing logic to the average American. A recent Gallup Poll asked Americans if they felt the tax cuts would increase or decrease the deficit. The "increase" response won by a 20-point margin. Even when we gave respondents a rationale for how the tax cuts could help decrease the deficit (by stimulating growth in the long run), less than half agreed that it would have that effect.
But despite Bush's potential liability on the issue, it probably is not going to be the top focus of the campaign next year. Last week's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that a majority of the public feels the Bush administration should focus on stimulating the economy rather than reducing the deficit.
Terrorism
Over the weekend, Attorney General John Ashcroft reinforced the U.S. government's contention that new terrorist attacks inspired by al Qaeda and perhaps by Osama bin Laden are possible in the weeks ahead. The government has informed airlines to be on the alert for attacks that may mimic the deadly tactics of the Sept. 11 terrorists, who commandeered airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The American public, according to Gallup polling conducted before these latest warnings, is less convinced now than at any point since 9/11 that new attacks are coming. Only 7% say it is very likely that there will be further acts of terrorism in the United States over the next several weeks, and another 33% say such acts are somewhat likely. This past March, in the midst of the Iraq war, those numbers were much higher.
Liberia
International peacekeeping forces are now in Liberia, and U.S. Navy ships are off the coast of that country, increasing the probability that U.S. Marines will be added to the peacekeeping force. Gallup polling suggests that the majority of Americans support the concept of U.S. intervention in that country. There are no significant differences between blacks and whites in their support for U.S. movement into Liberia, and Democrats are only slightly less likely than Republicans to favor it.
Gay Clergy
Episcopal bishops indefinitely postponed a vote Monday on whether to elect gay clergyman V. Gene Robinson as a bishop in New Hampshire, while allegations of impropriety are being investigated.
The decision on whether to elect him has been the subject of an intense debate within the Episcopal Church, just as the debate over legalized gay marriage has erupted onto the front pages of the nation's newspapers since the U.S. Supreme Court decision that invalidated a Texas anti-sodomy law.
All of this news comes at a time when there has been a significant shift in public opinion on gay and lesbian rights over the last two months. Two polls conducted in July, after the Supreme Court's June 26 decision to overturn the Texas law, showed a significant drop in the percentage of Americans supporting legalized homosexual relations. The latest Gallup Poll also shows that Americans are now less likely than they were in May to consider homosexual relationships acceptable, and also less likely to favor a law that would legalize gay civil unions. In fact, support for legalized civil unions has dropped to its lowest point since Gallup began asking about it four years ago.