[slowhand520]

I am the first to question the accuracy of a poll. But you can't dent Bush's slide. I think Rasmussen has it right. The bottom line is Bush has fallen out of favor with the base. Is it the end of the world? No. Every president at some time falls out of favor with their base. It happened to Reagan it happened to Clinton. You can't please everyone. The important part here is to get the base back. I hope Josh Bolten and Tony Snow are reading the blogs because that is where the base is. Not the beltway. I look at this positively because our next presidential candidate will be more conservative.

[HitmanLV]

I think any one poll doesn't tell you all that much. However, I think you can look at several polls (that all tell the same basic story) and draw a meaningful conclusion. That's been the story for quite a while now, though the conventional wisdom at FR has been to balk at every poll that shows Dubya and the GOP with low support.

That was foolish then and it is foolish now. Any one poll is questionable, but if all the major polls tell the same basic story, petulant denial of them isn't helpful.

I'm glad FR is beginning to realize that it is possible that public opinion can indeed shift against the GOP.

[AntiGuv]

What Bush & Co. don't seem to understand is that you can't work to build support in the mushy middle, and much less from your sworn, eternal enemies, unless you have a firm hold on your base. They used to have a really good sense of that, but for some inexplicable reason they've flushed it all over this amnesty obsession. Meanwhile, they cannot restore the support of the conservative base when they're more focused on appeasing the sworn, eternal enemies on the Teddy Kennedy left.