who likes bush?

Based on recent polls of the President’s approval ratings America is in no way a fan of the Bush administration or the President himself. In the most recent poll, the President had a 42% approval rating and 56% disapproval rating with 40% strongly disapproving and the rest somewhat. He’s not doing better among his fans as only 22% strongly approved with the rest “somewhat” approving.
(http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm)

At present and with less than a week to go to the midterms, most polls have Bush down by about 10 -15%. As you can see, a margin of error is irrelevant here as the core difference is so big. More important, all these low ratings bring up the question of why does America all of a sudden hate the President?

Seems like only yesterday that his approval ratings were swimming in the high 80’ and low 90’s. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/graphics/presidential_approval/flash.htm). But as the years have gone on America has grown to hate the President. His ratings have declined every year since 2001, so I ask again why?

Clearly there are many answers to this question and despite what the President would want you to think, most all of them are not attributable to the Democrat’s “Anti Bush” machine (especially since most people feel the Democrats have nowhere near the messaging machine” Karl Rove had put into place before the last election.

Let’s start with the basics, George Bush just barely won his first presidential election and some still feel that if the Governor of Florida didn’t share the President’s last name (not to mention mother and father) I’d be writing about the “Gore Whitehouse” today.

And it gets better, early indications made it seem that a second term for “Dubya” was far from a slam dunk. But thanks to Karl Rove’s prowess Bus became the only way to prevent a 9/11 repeat. He became so well liked that his approval ratings were dancing in the 90’s. He declared a war on terror, he went after weapons of mass destruction (real or imagined) with a vengeance that made us proud to be Americans. In fact many would say Osama Bin Laden was as responsible for the Bush re-election as Karl Rove was

So now its 2006 and look what happened! After a war that’s taking too long with too little results and gas prices that only recently “magically” came down America is no longer buying what the Republicans are selling.

The war on terror looks like it hasn’t had any definitive success—beyond avoiding a horrific repeat (FYI: the Republicans spin on that is “We can’t say why but we’re winning”)

The Katrina situation was terribly mishandled by FEMA--as Spike Lee showed so candidly in his HBO documentary. And on top of this, gas prices have hit record highs, though they have recently come down, Is it a coincidence that they came down right around the mid terms? You decide.

Bloggers and media have thrived on this down spiral of ratings. Some are happy and some giving their own reasons. (http://www.baltimoregroupblog.com/2006/05/11/isnt-that-sweet/) (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm) . But overall the general census is quite pleased with this.

So what does Bush think about this hate for him? He says "If I worried about polls, I wouldn't be doing my job," he said in a March interview. (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/28/bush.interview/). Even more recently he was reported saying that the Democrats were “dancing in the end zone” and not to worry the “Republicans will come out on top”, this in regard regards to his very low approval ratings and its affects on the upcoming elections.(http://news.aol.com/elections/dailypulse/103106/_a/whos-going-to-win/20061031104109990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001).

I find this funny because it seems as if Bush doesn’t care about polls. But in the 2000 election he cared very much about polls saying “The good news is that I'm leading in the polls," he told the group in his brief remarks before a closed session. "The bad news is the election isn't tomorrow." . He also said “After all, these are people who live by all these polls and focus groups. [They] must be seeing something in those polls and focus groups that make them nervous.” This is quite contrary to his views as of late.

(http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/07/13/bushpoll.lat/index.html).

So what’s the big deal? Bush has already been re-elected, unless Congress changes the law he’s not eyeing a third term—aside from paying back political markers and hoping to have a Senate and house he can work and play well with for the next 2 years, these ratings don’t really matter to him!

Too bad the same is not true for everybody around him. Due to these distinctive differences in the ratings it looks as if the republicans contradictory to what bush said will not come out on top.