Bush Numbers Hit New Low: majority say job performance fair or poor

Zogby ^ | Sept. 6, 2003

[mrweb]

Bush Numbers Hit New Low; Dean Tops List of Democratic Presidential Contenders, New Zogby America Poll Reveals

President George W. Bush’s job performance ratings have reached the lowest point since his pre-Inauguration days, continuing a steady decline since a post-9/11 peak, according to a new Zogby America poll of 1,013 likely voters conducted September 3-5.

Less than half (45%) of the respondents said they rated his job performance good or excellent, while a majority (54%) said it was fair or poor.

In August Zogby International polling, his rating was 52% positive, 48% negative. Today’s results mark the first time a majority of likely voters have given the president an unfavorable job performance rating since he took office.

Bush Job Performance Positive % Negative %

September 2003 45% 54%

August 2003 52% 48%

July 2003 53% 46%

March 2003 54% 45%

September 2002 64% 36%

September 2001 82% 17%

August 2001 50% 49%

January 2001 42% 36%

[jimbo123]

Zogby's Pollsters

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

Bush can boost his ratings by spending more time on domestic social issues to shore up his core supporters.

[Eva]

Big Bush speech tomorrow night should take care of those poll numbers. No one has countered any of the Democrat attacks for a month. The economy is on the rise, unemployment is down and Iraq is not as bad as the left leaning media has led us to believe.

[lasereye]

where's that smaller, limited government we were promised when the Republicrats took over?

Who promised that?

[DrDeb]

I agree with many of the astute analysts on this thread -- this poll is merely a STATIC SNAPSHOT taken during a period when Democrats and Independents have decided to shift their focus from our War on Terror to the RAT/media's view of the economy -- the President's poll numbers will continue to track this group's perception of the economy unless/until something DRAMATIC happens relative to terrorism.

[NOTE: Conveniently, Zogby managed to contact LVs at the very moment the media was both highlighting the RAT Bush Bash, i.e., debate, and misrepresenting the new job's report!]

PERSPECTIVE:

At this point in their respective presidencies, both Reagan and Clinton had GALLUP approval ratings in the high 30s/low 40s (given that Zogby usually tracks 7-10 points below Gallup, he would have given the two positive ratings in the low 30s/perhaps even high 20s).

Even in 1997, AFTER RE-ELECTION, Clinton had two consecutive Zogby polls BELOW the President's current level (and this was with a decent economy AND a fawning media):

4/97 42 positive 55 negative
[Gallup 55 approve 36 disapprove)

6/97 44 positive 55 negative
[Gallup 54 approve 37 disapprove]

HOWEVER, unlike Clinton, (and exactly like Reagan) President Bush will NEVER get the support of either the media or the academic elites -- the groups that shape the perceptions of 60% of the electorate!! For this reason, this election cycle will be HELL for him and for us.

[Reagan lucked out -- the Democrats nominated a NE liberal (when the country was A LOT more conservative than it is today) and the economy/job picture turned "positive" (with 8% unemployment!) at just the right moment! Can it happen again? For the sake of this country (and my children) I certainly hope so!!]

NOTE: President Bush may indeed suffer the same fate as Winston Churchill. Like Churchill, George W. Bush is a morally courageous CONSERVATIVE. For this reason, the media/elites will NEVER accept him and 60% of the people in this country will NEVER appreciate him (including the Libertarians/Buchananites at FR -- whose ilk also drove Reagan crazy)! Nevertheless, President Bush will have accomplished more in 4 years than most presidents in 8 (or in Clinton's case, EVER)!

[lasereye]

I read that Rove's plan was to let Bush spend August at the ranch, and let the Democrats knock themselves silly slamming him.

The poll numbers would drop, the Dems would use up all their best ammo, then Bush could come out swinging, with room to surge in the polls.

Hey August is over. Bush has never come out swinging. It's just not his style.

Of course, if the economy is great a year from now he'll be tough to beat. The question is what will he do if it's okay but not booming? The Democrats and the media will be accentuating the negative and making it sound like we're still in a recession ("The worst economy in 50 years"), even if we clearly aren't.

He'll have to convince people both that it's not doing as badly as the Dems/media are saying and that the economy would be doing worse if not for his tax cuts. He'll have to further make the case that the Dems will put us back into a recession with tax increases and big new spending schemes. I don't see him or his team being able to do that. The fact is he's just not forceful.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

A smart friend came up with the theory that Bush and Co. took this war on terrorism to Iraq where they knew they would get rid of Saddam, destroy the WMDs and draw the terrorists to Iraq where there are no lawyers to protect them, it's easier to shoot first and ask questions later.

If that's the case (and it sounds plausible) each one of these terrorists killed over there is one less to cause terror here. We'll never know how many have been killed.

[faithincowboys]

This is Zogby trying to shape opinion rather than record it. Only believe Zogby polls on the eve of an election.

[FairOpinion]

Zogby is not being honest with the polls.

He gives people four choices:
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor

Then he goes and lumps "fair" in with "poor" and calls them "negative".

This is blatantly misleading.

"Fair" is NOT a negative, it's maybe a "C" or maybe "OK" or a "pass" but NOT negative. "Poor" is a fail, a negative.

If you lumped in "fair" with "good" and "excellent", as it's appropriate (grades A, B, C) and look at "poor" only as the negatives, the picture would be totally different.

[jmstein7]

Not even. Zogby has lost it -- his predictions last year were off bases, even on election eve'.

[txrangerette]

Agreed. Zog distorts until his
final pre-election poll. Does it
to sway wishy-washy voters, then
tells it straight to enhance his
credibility. Maddening!!!

[DrDeb]

I just posted the following comments on a similar thread:


MORE PERSPECTIVE:

According to Gallup, President Reagan exited office with an average approval rating of 53% -- yes, the most popular Republican president in recent memory 'only' averaged a 53% approval rating.

Actually, President Reagan spent most of his presidency in the 40 percentile range -- the 30 percentile range using Zogby's schemata! Why? The left-wing media hated him!

President Bush faces the same obstacle today. His media enemies (and the enemies of the Republican Party) include 90% of the country's newspapers, 95% of the world's wire services, 95% of the electronic outlets, and 99.9% of Hollywierd (and I haven't even mentioned academia). All the Republicans have is FOXNews (which has become little more than CNN Lite), with approximately 2 million viewers vs the 20 million viewers at ABCNBCCBS/CNNMSNBCCNBC, and talk radio (of course, the RATs plan to unveil their own talk radio outlet this winter).

It amazes me that any Republican can get elected/re-elected (which is why so many have elected NOT to run) in such a hostile environment, much less maintain approval ratings any higher than those posted by President Reagan and now by President Bush!

Soooooooooo, we need to stop blaming the victim and start determining how we can overcome such obstacles before Nov 2004. [NOTE: a little UNITY wouldn't hurt!!]

[stylin_geek]

I completely disagree with Bush and his domestic agenda, except tax cuts. However, I also know that if he were not aggressively pursuing a policy of combating terrorism, it would not be long before my disagreement with his domestic policy would be irrelevant. In other words, the external problems we face are of far more importance and would have far greater impact than the internal problems, as of right now.

[Rockitz]

When you don't have a job, all those social issues just kind of melt away for most people. Actually, I'm afraid the EVIL one, Hillary, will be a last minute entry if she sees blood in the streets. God help us!

[Holden Magroin]

I don't believe a damn thing Zogby says. In the 2002 elections, he was way, way, way off the mark. For example, a poll he released a couple of days before the election showed Ron Kirk neck and neck with John Cornyn. Cornyn ended up beating Kirk by 12 points. If you ask me, Zogby is just ticked off that Bush hasn't been nice to Zogby's Palestinian buddies.

[KQQL]

ZOGBY ! SAUCE of 2002 continues...................

[KQQL]

Yep ! Zogby was full off CRAP in 2002........

[Mo1]

President George W. Bush’s job performance ratings have reached the lowest point since his pre-Inauguration days, continuing a steady decline since a post-9/11 peak, according to a new Zogby America poll of 1,013 likely voters conducted September 3-5.

Since his pre-Inauguration days ????

Why does this sound like an LA Times poll

[Dialup Llama]

>The important thing is the trend.

>If you are going to use 4 catagories then you should show the raw data for 4 catagories then we can tell for ourselves.

This poll is an example of how deeply biased the Zogby methodology is. You say that there are 4 categories (2 for pos. 2 for neg) therefore it is fair.

Most people, when they say a person is doing a 'fair' job, think they are giving a positive rating. Those 'fair' respondents would be surprised to know they their 'fair' response increased Bush's negatives.

The four category survey is a forced response survey (requiring that you make a positive or negative choice). An unbiased, 4 category survey of the forced response type would have categories like this: really good, pretty good, somewhat poor, el stinko. There are 2 positive categories and 2 negative categories.

When Zobgy puts 'fair' into the negative side he is introducing a bias thst most people would overlook because Rush tells them Zogby is straight. He is not straight with his methodology.