Of course that assessment was in 2001 and the president being portrayed as unpopular was George Bush. Now that Obama’s numbers are worse than Bush’s numbers in the same time frame, guess it’s only fair to say that Obama is an unpopular president by the standard set by his base.
Steve Cobble, Kucinich Campaign Political Advisor and PDA Board member, wrote the following in August 2001:
Bush’s Polls Are Much Worse than the Media Pretends
The Conventional Wisdom for the past couple of weeks is that Resident-Select Bush has gotten a bump in the polls, and the media sent him off on his “working vacation” with lots of puff pieces about his recent victories in the House.
Ah yes, this brings back fond memories of the good folks on the left supporting our president and wishing him much success. Don’t suppose they begrudge the current president his vacation after a long 6 months on the job taking over auto companies and banks and trying his darnedest to take over health care in this country…
(Question: if what Bush is doing now is a working vacation, does that make the napping/exercising/goofing off he does in D.C. “work vacating”?
As always with the Shrub, however, there were some interesting, and largely overlooked items in those polls.
” The shrub”… that’s hilarious.. the shrub… get it…
For instance, the same 7/30 ABC/Washington Post poll that gave Bush a 59% job approval rating, also showed him with a 38% disapproval rating–a 15% gain in disapproval since his 55-23% ratings in late February.
LOL!!!! So Bush’s approval goes UP 4% but since his disapproval also goes up 15%, his presidency was tanking.
Hmmm… OK, let’s accept that premise. Obama has gone from 62.3% in Feb to 51.2% approval in the same time frame; a DROP of 11%. At the same time, his disapproval has climbed from 28.5% to 42.4%, nearly 14%, and higher than Bush’s disapproval rating.
So, it is reasonable to conclude that Obama’s approval/disapproval rating is lower than Bush’s at the same point in time. Since Bush was unpopular, Obama must be really unpopular… can’t tell based upon the press coverage. More from Cobble:
USA Today/CNN/Gallup ran a poll earlier in July that gave Bush a 57-35% job approval rating. What was not reported, however, were the answers they got to a couple of questions they asked, which readers of www.democrats.com will find interesting:
* 48% of the respondents agreed that Bush had won “fair and square”; but 50% (fully half) did not! 33% of those polled felt that Bush had won “on a technicality”, and 17% (1 out of every 6 Americans) were willing to tell pollsters that they believe that Bush “stole the election”!
* 73% told the pollsters that they accept Bush as a legitimate president; 15% said that they do not accept him as legitimate, but might in the future; meanwhile, 11% responded that they will never accept Bush as legitimate!
That’s the atmosphere the Bush was operating in from day one, as opposed to Obama’s ascension to the throne and media crowning.
Sure makes it even more amazing that Bush was more popular than Obama… <snicker>
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