November 3, 2008
Basic Trends: Bush
The campaigns do the best they can under the circumstances fate has dealt them. Their campaigns may do better or worse than expected, but the basic trends provide the context of the election contest.
The current administration is one part of those basic trends. And in this case the familiar trend for approval of President Bush dramatically demonstrates the burden faced by McCain and the opportunity provided to Obama.
Adding to the long term impact is the recent drop in approval from already poor low 30s to the current 24.2. The financial crisis (and campaign rhetoric criticizing him) has driven his approval to new lows.
By Charles Franklin on November 3, 2008 1:41 PM | Permalink
Requiem For a Failed Presidency
Bush's steady, 45 degree polling slide from the post-9/11 peak to its present ignominous depth and current lame-duck irrelevance says it all about his presidency. Never before has a president's pattern of polling numbers so closely resembled the hypotenuse of a right triangle.
And Bush has earned every point of this persistent decline. His ideological fervor mixed with an unprecendented level of sheer incompetence and a startling contempt for the value of good governance have undermined of the Constitution, wrecked the economy, and damaged our standing with the nations of the world in ways that will be difficult--though not, I trust, impossible--to repair. Few of us, Republican or Democrat, can wait for this presidency to be over.
Posted on November 3, 2008 5:32 PM