Iraq
President Bush and his administration are on an Iraq public relations blitz, attempting to drive home the point that, as Bush put it in his radio speech on Saturday: "Iraq is making progress."
The Bush administration's motivation behind these efforts is no secret. Most available polling data suggest that the American public's views on the progress of the situation in Iraq are continuing to deteriorate.
In an Oct. 6-8 Gallup Poll, only 42% of Americans said that things are going well for the United States and its allies in Iraq. That's the lowest rating on this measure in the nine times Gallup has asked the question since April 2003. Fifty-eight percent of Americans say things are going badly in Iraq.
Furthermore, Americans are giving Bush lower job approval ratings for his handling of the situation in Iraq. The latest reading is 47%, the first time it has been below the 50% mark since combat began.
Bush continues to press for the enormous $87 billion appropriation to help reconstruct Iraq and maintain security there. ("I urge Congress to pass my budget request soon so this vital work can proceed," Bush said in his radio address.) But a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll completed Sunday shows that 57% of Americans think Congress should not vote to authorize the $87 billion -- this is more negative than the responses to the initial question Gallup asked about the appropriation in early September.
Despite these negative attitudes about the way things are going in Iraq, Bush has not yet lost the war for public backing on the issue. A majority of Americans continue to support the basic concept of U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Currently, 40% of Americans say that the United States made a mistake in sending troops to fight in Iraq, while 59% say the country did not. Similarly, 55% of Americans feel that the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over. That number is actually up from 50% in mid-September.
So, while there is great concern about the day-to-day execution of the war in Iraq -- with the near-constant news of terrorist bombings and U.S. deaths -- Americans have not yet come to the point where they feel that the whole enterprise has been in vain.
We also know that despite its dominance on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, the war is not the public's all-consuming concern at this point. Almost half of Americans tell us that the economy is the top problem facing the country today, while just 11% mention some aspect of war or Iraq as the top problem (another 8% mention terrorism, and 3% mention national security). When we gave voters a long list of issues and asked them how important each would be to their vote for president next year, the economy and jobs were rated just as important, if not more important, than anything related to foreign policy.
The Economy
The wait continues for a major shift in the public's attitudes about the economy. The stock market is up, and many other economic indicators are positive. An Oct. 13 USA Today story reported, "The U.S. economy is thought to have roared ahead at a 5.4% annual rate in the third quarter -- the fastest pace since the fall of 1999 according to the median forecast of 60 economists surveyed by USA Today."
Still, this good economic news hasn't totally permeated the public's consciousness. Just 22% of Americans rate the economy as excellent or good, which is essentially as low as this number has been in years.
There's some hope evident in the data, however. Forty-five percent of Americans now say that the economy is getting better, while 46% say it is getting worse. Sixty-four percent say that the U.S. economy will be in either "very" or "somewhat" good shape a year from now, compared to only 44% who rate the economy as "very good" or "somewhat good" today. On a relative basis, these numbers aren't bad.
Bush's Handling of the Economy
Still, Bush isn't doing very well in terms of his ratings on handling the economy -- at least not yet. More than half of U.S. adults now disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy, while only 42% approve. These are the lowest marks Bush has received on this question since his administration began.
The history of the public's rating of Bush's handling of the economy is fairly straightforward. Just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the summer of 2001, Bush received ratings in the mid-50% range. After the attacks, his economic approval rating soared (along with his overall job approval rating), but began to fall very quickly. By November 2002, Bush's economic job approval rating was 55%. As noted, the current rating is his lowest yet.
The perceived state of the economy is often the biggest factor determining an incumbent president's chances for re-election. But the current ratings don't necessarily doom the president to defeat. It's early yet. Neither Ronald Reagan nor Bill Clinton had particularly good ratings on handling the economy at this point in their administrations. Reagan's was at 37% in August 1983, and Clinton's was at 44% in October 1995. Both went on to easy re-election a year later.
There may even be a ray of hope for the administration when comparing Bush's current situation to that of his father. In the fall of 1991, Bush the elder's job approval rating on handling the economy had fallen to a dismal 29%. That's a shockingly low number, given that George H.W. Bush's overall job approval rating was still a relatively robust 66% at that point. In other words, Americans were more negative regarding the first President Bush's handling of the economy a year before the election of 1992 than they are on the second President Bush's handling of the economy today.
The key for George W. Bush is what happens from this point on. By the summer of 1984, Reagan's economic job approval had risen to 50%. More impressively, Clinton's job approval rating on the economy rose to 58% in the fall of 1996. Bush the elder, on the other hand, was in a clear decline. By the summer of 1992, his approval rating on the economy had dropped dramatically to 18%, almost certainly the major reason why he failed to be re-elected in November.
Presidential Job Approval
One of the major findings from the last two Gallup Polls is that George W. Bush's overall job approval numbers are up. The president's job approval reached a low of 50% in our Sept. 19-21 survey, but then jumped to 55% in our Oct. 6-8 survey, and 56% in the Oct. 10-12 survey. This increase occurred at the same time that ratings on Bush's handling of the economy, the situation in Iraq, and foreign affairs have dropped.
It's possible that the administration's new Iraq public relations campaign may be having an effect. It's also possible that the California recall election has so dominated the news that Americans have been distracted from the harsh criticisms of the president coming from the Democratic presidential candidates. Whatever the reason, these higher ratings mark the reversal of a long-term trend; the president's job approval rating had been declining relatively steadily since the major fighting stopped in Iraq earlier this year.
Democratic Presidential Race
There is simply no strong front-runner among the Democratic candidates for president, that is to say, no candidate has yet moved to the point where he or she runs 20 points ahead of the nearest competitor or gets 40% or more of the vote of Democrats nationally.
Ret. Army Gen. Wesley Clark has been at the top of the national horse race recently, but not by much. Other candidates such as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Sen. John Kerry, and Rep. Dick Gephardt are closely bunched just behind. The other candidates, trying to deflate Clark's prospects, are discounting these types of national polls, pointing to the crucial importance of the early primary states instead.
They're right, to a significant degree. It's clear that Democrats tend to sit back and wait for the results of the early primaries to come in before they form firm opinions on which candidate they will support. But the lack of a clear front-runner in the national numbers is still important; it strongly suggests that none of the current candidates on the scene have a great deal of "instant" charisma or appeal. The national findings also underscore the conclusion that the race remains wide open for a number of the contenders.
The Arnold Effect
Does the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger in California signify that there is a pending rebellion brewing among voters nationally -- one that will result in voters throwing Bush out of office next year? That's the top question I've been asked since last week's California recall election.
I don't think California predicts national trends. There is a much lower level of dissatisfaction with Bush nationally than was the case for Gov. Gray Davis in California. Davis' job approval rating was 24% among voters who went to the polls last week in the Golden State. Bush's job approval rating, as noted, is about 30 points higher. Also, while 57% of Americans say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time, that satisfaction rating is nowhere as negative as it was just before Bush the elder was voted out of office (17% in the summer of 1992) or before Jimmy Carter lost his re-election bid (12% in the summer of 1979).
The current approval rating of Congress is 41%. This rating is not robust by any means, but it is considerably higher than the 21% rating Congress received in early October 1994, about a month before the famous Contract with America vote that brought Republican majorities into power in both houses of Congress.
Rush Limbaugh
The world of talk radio was startled last week, when the popular conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh admitted on his Friday radio show that he is addicted to prescription pain medication. News of Limbaugh's addiction was splashed across the cover of the National Enquirer tabloid this past week, and on Friday, Limbaugh admitted that he is undergoing investigation by authorities in Florida, where he has a home. Limbaugh announced that he will leave his show for 30 days to participate in a drug rehab program.
The general issue of drug abuse -- highlighted by Limbaugh's situation -- remains a significant problem in American society today. Gallup's October crime poll asked Americans if drugs have ever been a source of problems in their family. Twenty-four percent of respondents said yes and 76% said no. That compares to the 31% of Americans who said that alcohol has been a problem in their family.