is a cause for celebration with the democrats. At 31% he has to be at the lowest rating of all time, right? Not so fast. There were actually four presidents who sunk to lower public opiniopn ratings Bush Sr. Carter, Nixon in descending order. The alltime lowest rating of 22% went to none other than Harry Truman, avery highly regarded president. The year? 1952. What was going on in 1952? The Korean conflict. Here are twp presidents oftern compared in their styles and simplicities sinking to all time lows in time of war. Is there a moral here? Hell if I know. Maybe that making tough decisions is often unpopular.
He wasn't too popular when he left office though, at least that's what I remember from American History. Eisenhower ran on a get out of Korea platform I'm pretty sure. JO'Co, or Whobe will know. Terry
Truman was very unpopular when he left office. But history has treated him very well. Personally I think History will treat George Bush well also. But that's just my opinion. Gator Bill
:idea: Presidents only fall that far when they've lost their base. The country is divided down the middle most of the time, with about 48% leaning to the left and 48% leaning to the right. Around 18% percent describe themselves as "Far Left", while 22% call themselves "Far Right", but none of that is really too important, because those are are self-descriptions. Just remember that the middle ground is fairly narrow at around 4%. That's where most presidential elections are decided... About half of the American people are predisposed to be against the president no matter what he does. In Mr. Bush's case, he was reelected with just under 52%. That's his base of support, consisting of virtually all Republicans, conservatives and moderates, with very few Democrats crossing over and zero Lefties. His high water mark was over 60%, meaning that he picked up a substantial number of moderate Democrats for awhile. His current numbers reflect Republican/conservative unhappiness with a range of issues, from immigration, to high spending levels. Ironically, its the Far Right which has been deserting him in droves over those two issues, while the Far Left was never with him on the war. Those two segments represent 40% of the voters by themselves, but they're against him for opposite reasons! The secret of his success has been capturing the middle while containing the Right and battling the Left. The latest numbers show that he's lost containment of the Far Right and those numbers are being added to those who were already voting against him. His only chance to survive, is to bring the Right back onto the reservation. If he fails, the lib/Dems might win control of the House, and that would mean the final two years of his presidency would be involved in endless investigations and impeachment proceedings, which would leave the country in an even angrier mood than they already are and more revenge politics... ...........JO'Co
:idea: re: Harry S Truman in 1952 Truman fired MacArthur, who was maybe the most popular general since U.S. Grant, for being unwilling to support Truman's policies of containment and MAD. Truman lost his base among Democrats who had been supporting a policy of victory abroad since Franklin Roosevelt... Eisenhower offered a return to a policy of winning ("I will go to Korea.") and ended the war shortly after being reelected by threatening the Communists with nuclear weapons... ..........JO'Co
" final two years of his presidency would be involved in endless investigations and impeachment proceedings, which would leave the country in an even angrier mood than they already are and more revenge politics... " Geez.....that sounds familiar.
I believe less and less in polls <t>over the course of my life, i've seen that these things are just meaningless. how many gloom and doom polls did Bush have to hear about only to be triumphant in two elections? At one point in time, polls showed Howard Dean was the runaway leader for the DNC presidential candidate spot. That all came to a crashing halt in one night. Elections count, polls dont. Leaders lead and sometimes those decisions aren't the most popular. You can have a leader who follows polls, but what does that get you?<br/> <br/> Regardless of what the consensus may say in a given moment, it isn't their job to lead. Its the President's. If the 'leader' follows popular opinion and things go to hell in a hand basket, who is to blame?? the people?? No. But the folly that leaders should be enslaved to polls just goes to show just hot little some understand leadership.<br/> <br/> If you had any sort of decent parenting growing up, you may remember that the vast majority of decisions that your father and mother made for you weren't too popular. But they were right. If your parents let the kids set the rules and sit down for a consultation before making the major decisions for you early in your life, well... just turn on your tv if you want to see how that's turning out.</t>
I wonder if the left and those unhappy with Bush and want to impeach him. Would be happier in a Parlimentary situation where the govt can be brought down with a no confidence vote. At least I think that's how it works, am I right? Terry
Also.. I understand that Bush has a lot of things that can be spun very negatively, starting with the "Bush" lied, which we now know was faulty intelligence which the Germans had, the French, the English, which was believed by the previous administration. But now he's fighting the privacy concerns over the phone # database issue, which is IMHO sort of silly. They did not listen to Sids phone, MCG's phone, JO'Co's phone, etc. They just have a huge database of what numbers called what other numbers. If you are a suspected terrorist then they know who you called and who called you. Seems OK to me. Same thing for the other program. Not to mention when you read the polls you'd believe that the country is in a recession, yet the Dow was at an all-time high, unemployment inspite of outsourcing is still very low in this country. It's lower than Europe and lower than India. Sometimes it's how the question is asked. Terry