May 25, 2004

This press release from The Gallup Organization, about Bush's support among Republicans, is a couple of days old. It has some interesting analysis:

Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd contends that Bush has reached a floor of sorts in his ratings because Bush has continually enjoyed high levels of support from Republicans. Since Republicans constitute about a third of the U.S. population, it is mathematically correct to assume that a 90% job approval rating from this group, coupled with some level of approval from independents and Democrats, will result in an overall rating in the 40% range.

Here is a graph that presents the breakout of Bush's job approval at various points in his administration:

George W. Bush's Job Approval Ratings
by Partisanship
Selected Trend 2001-2004

It's clear that Bush's job approval rating among Republicans has remained remarkably high during his entire administration. Bush started in the first months of 2001 with about 9 in 10 Republicans approving of the job he was doing. Then, coincident with record-high overall approval ratings after 9/11, Bush's approval among Republicans zoomed to almost 100%. As Bush's overall ratings slipped, his approval dropped back a little to roughly the 90% level among Republicans, but no further. Remarkably, his job approval rating among Republicans has remained at that level ever since. At the same time, Bush has lost support among both independents and Democrats. In Gallup's most recent poll, in fact, Bush's job performance is approved of by only 14% of Democrats.

No surprise there.

Now add this, from polling results they released today:

This level of partisanship wouldn't bother me were it not for a particular set of beliefs held by the Bush partisans that have been SO disproven by reality as to only be explainable by:

• a lack of information


• a wealth of disinformation


• some combination of the above two

…i.e., ignorance. That most of the country at some time believed Iraq responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington, that so significant a fraction of the population still does is more worrisome to me than anything specific Dubya can pull out of his hat at this point. It is obvious that reason will get no play in the current situation and equally obvious that is not acceptable in the long term.

At this point the Democratic Party is gearing up to match the Conservative Movement's propaganda machine, but its talking points are no more appealing to the right than the right's are to Democrats. And the political polarization is such that the percentage of actually undecided voters is pretty close to falling totally inside the margin of error of any poll. I don't think that's supportable long term either.

Republicans have an "in" to the mind of any given Democrat: money. Okay, that and we have to listen to every voice because we really are a disparate, motley crew, we progressives. Alright, truth be told, the nature…not the content…of the Conservative pitch being imagery rather than ideas there is simply a category of humans to whom it speaks effectively.

There is frankly no counter to that first advantage other than collective spiritual evolution. The second is a side effect of our greatest strength as a nation (which, btw, it not that we allow immigrants to assimilate but that American culture assimilates them) and you don't give that up.The third can be countered by understanding the appeal of the imagery the Right uses. You then create flattering imagery supported by progressive ideas.

This does nothing to address the real long-term problem of ignorance. It actually takes advantage of it. But what can you do, short term? You can't lose sight of your ultimate goal, but you can't let the perfect obstruct the good either.

Posted by P6 at May 25, 2004 07:32 AM
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