Posted on 03/23/2002 6:44:12 AM PST by alloysteel
Though he narrowly lost the state to Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election, President George W. Bush is now riding a wave of personal and political popularity among Wisconsin residents, results from the new Badger Poll show.
The Badger Poll, conducted by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center and sponsored by The Capital Times and Wisconsin Public Broadcasting, shows 68 percent of state residents rate Bush's job performance as either excellent or good.
And nearly 60 percent of those polled also say they like Bush personally and support his policies.
"No matter how you slice it, these ratings are quite high," said Badger Poll director G. Donald Ferree.
The poll shows some clear partisan differences, however: Less than half of the Democrats polled gave Bush the highest approval ratings, compared to 92 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of independents.
And only 31 percent of Democrats say they personally like Bush and support his policies, compared to 92 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents.
But the so-called "gender gap," in which women traditionally tend to identify more closely with Democrats, didn't surface. Both men and women gave Bush virtually identical approval ratings, 67 percent for women and 69 percent for men.
Bush's approval rating is much higher than that of his predecessor, Bill Clinton. Asked to look back on Clinton's two terms, only 47 percent gave him the highest rankings. Democrats gave him the highest marks by an almost 3-1 margin over Republicans.
Looking back on the 2000 elections - in which Gore won Wisconsin by a little more than 5,000 votes out of 2.5 million cast - residents say they would now pick Bush by better than a 2-1 margin.
That's no surprise to Ferree, who says it's common for voters to "remember" picking the winner in hindsight - even if they really voted for his or her opponent. And Bush may have picked up support among those who didn't vote but wished they had - especially now that the president is riding a wave of popular support.
Such sentiments may be short-lived, however. Ferree recalls that after Richard Nixon's landslide presidential victory in 1972, more people polled said they voted for him than actually did. By the time Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974, "no one would say that they voted for him," Ferree says.
Bush's strong showing in the poll is strongly related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon in several ways, Ferree argues.
First, Americans of all political stripes tend to rally around the president - no matter who it is - in times of crisis. But that burst of support tends to dissipate within days or weeks of the initial crisis.
More important in Bush's case is that "things really have changed," Ferree says. Overnight, the national agenda was transformed. Concerns, for example, about the federal budget deficit and Social Security reform have taken a back seat to issues of national security, he says.
Finally, there was Bush's own response to the Sept. 11 attack, which Ferree says "has really changed the way people think of George Bush. He looks like a more effective president."
Reflecting that changed national environment, Wisconsin residents appear ready to have their own concerns take a back seat to what they perceive as the national interest.
A majority - some 52 percent - said they believe Bush's policies are helping the country. But only half as many said they believe they are personally being helped by those policies - and 53 percent said they believe Bush's policies are having no effect on their lives.
Again, how people responded to those questions depended on their political outlook.
Slightly more than half of the Democrats and independents thought Bush's policies are helping the country, compared to 84 percent of Republicans. Less than a third of the independents and just 17 percent of Democrats thought Bush is helping them personally, compared to 48 percent of Republicans.
"All of these things are an indication of the way the agenda has shifted toward 'united we stand' and away from personal interests," Ferree says.
I'm definitely not getting over his decision to sign CFR. Those who think it's part of a master strategery to kill the bill once and for all by having the SCOTUS overturn it are delusional.
Maybe SCOTUS will kill it, and maybe they won't. I hope they do. But I will never forgive Bush for not vetoing such a blatant and direct assault on the US Constitution when he had the chance. Just as bad as anything Clinton ever did.
I'd hate to test this resignation in reality, only to find Hitlery or the likes in power in 2004. Of course, just MHO.
Heck, one of the co-lead counsels is the same attorney who argued the Pentagon Papers case for the NYT! I just love the irony of that.
CFR is going down in flames. I believe the SCOTUS is going to slap little johnny mccain up one side and down the other.
And, thanks to an expedition clause in the statute, this will get its day in court sooner rather than later. May even happen before the November elections!!
I know it's trivial, but I was just testing my memory ... senior moment maybe?
g
Haaaaa ha ha ha.
Good! As long as Americans understand the fact that we will survive as long as we stand together, this country will beat this thing.
Whenever people say that if the circumstances were reversed, that Bush would have done what Gore did in Florida, just point out that there were four other states where the differences were within documentable levels of fraud and Bush DIDN'T do what Gore did...even though winning three of the four would have made Florida irrelevant.
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