Opinion: Bush’s plummeting poll numbers

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There are bad poll numbers. And then there are REALLY bad poll numbers. President Bush now finds himself deep into the latter category.

The Gallup Organization has been tracking the ebb and flow of presidential popularity for decades. And in a survey it conducted Friday through Sunday (teamed with USA Today), here’s the negative news for Bush: his job approval rating puts him in the bottom 3% of more than 1,300 Gallup polls since 1938.

Bush got positive marks from 29% of those interviewed, a new low for him. As detailed by Gallup on its web page he now joins four other presidents since World War II whose job approval figure dipped below 30%: his father, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Harry Truman.

On this scale, the Bush currently living in the White House has some wiggle room before he makes history. Truman, due largely to the stalemated war in Korea, had approval ratings of 25% or less several times in the early 1950s. Nixon, plagued by the Watergate scandal, was at 26% or less during much of the spring and summer of 1974.

Looked at through the prism of disapproval ratings, however, we see Bush knocking on history’s door. His 66% mark in the new polls ties him with Nixon’s worst figure --- recorded just days before he was forced to resign from office in August, 1974. Truman’s worst showing --- and the highest disapproval figure for any president in Gallup polling history --- was 67% in January, 1952. Not surprisingly, Truman shortly thereafter made official what most had suspected: he announced he would not seek another term that November.

The folks at Gallup, in summing up their new results, remind us that the range of job approval ratings for Bush has been ‘extraordinary’ --- from 90% in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to the current 29%.

-- Don Frederick