Salon: Galbraith: Bush*s Hail Mary

[kskiska]

The only events that have (temporarily) stopped the constant erosion of Bush's popularity have been 9/11, the Iraq war and the capture of Saddam. He'd better hope he finds Osama in October.

By James K. Galbraith

George W. Bush has held office for 36 months. How is he doing politically, and what can we learn from a detached look at the record?




First of all, notice how closely the polls track. True, the ABC-Washington Post poll tends to run a little high. Pew and Zogby tend to run a little low. But the range is not large, and all of the polls move in the same direction at the same time. This suggests they are measuring something real. The pollsters may be redundant, but they have not been wasting their time.

What is the message of these numbers? One stands out: In his entire first term, only three episodes so far have gained approval for Bush. All were related to terrorism and to war. They were 9/11, the war on Iraq, and the capture of Saddam. Taken together, the five months when Bush gained popularity on these events account for 89 percent of all the variation in the change of Bush's job approval, measured by the average of these polls.

It is not surprising that Bush's State of the Union speech dwelt so heavily on war and terror.

(snip)

But equally, consider what has happened in the other 32 months. The record is remarkably consistent: In the range of approvals above 48 percent or so -- that is, among voters who did not vote for him in 2000 -- Bush loses support, month after month. And he does so at what is nearly a constant rate. Tick, tock.

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/02/09/bush_approval/index.html

[Old and In the Way]

1. Plot the trend line out 7 more months

Bush hits 40% approvals. OBL is the only thing that could change this graph and that would need to be perfectly timed.

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. Downside risk....

...significantly greater than any upside reward.

Short 'em.

[ixion]

3. The thing that bothers me about the bin Laden scenario

is that it's being telegraphed by a variety of outlets as being the 'ace' up *'s sleeve. Now, if we know that, why would we allow it to have the same effect, given that we have statistical evidence that the timing of his capture would be strictly political.

I really wish the sheeple would wise up just enough to realize who they've left in charge of the flock. :-(

[fjc]

4. It makes me wonder if there isn't a way to short circuit

that eventuality, some way to steal the thunder before the actual event by floating the prospect beforehand of a well timed OBL capture.