When is it safe to say that Bush is history?

[DeaconBlues]

I'm sure we're all heartened by Bush's decline in the polls, but how far down does he have to go before we know he's toast? What's the historical precedent as far as poll numbers are concerned? At what point is a president considered unelectable?

[dorktv]

1. um one percent?

[maxanne]

2. November 2000 n/t

[Booberdawg]

3. After he is defeated in the 2004 election, not before

[unblock]

4. when he doesn't have $200,000,000 in the bank

$200,000,000 buys a LOT of lies.

bush's opponent will likely be rather unknown to the country at large (e.g., who's dean? who's kucinich? who's clark?), barring an unexpected entry by gore or hillary. with his $200,000,000, bush will be able to define his opponent as something far worse than himself. you know the smear job is coming, big time.

and people may well chose the devil they know.

don't count him out, they have a lot of slimy tricks up their sleeves.

[Clete]

5. It's not.

If they figure a way to steal the next election, then it might explain the reason they seem to think it's in the bag with all the evidence being to the contrary.

[CarlBallard]

6. Nixon and Truman

both got to the 20's durring watergate and the worst moments of the Korean war. Neither of them were reelected after that but neiter of them tried either.

[DeaconBlues]

7. Thanks all for the info

Does anyone know what Ford, Carter, and Bush I's numbers were when they lost?

[gbwarming]

9. refer to professor Pollkatz

http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/files/pollkatzcontentpage.html

Specifically, the chart entitled "Day-by-Day comparison of King George to Six ACTUAL Postwar Presidents" found here:
/

Where you can see the Bush* is on a pleasingly downhill trajectory a little sooner than his dad. BushI* and President Carter both got down to around 30% approval before the election. Don't know about Ford but Nixon looks to have gotten down to ~25%.

[DeaconBlues]

12. Great site

I forgot all about professor pollkatz - this link seems to give all the juicy details...
http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/files/galluptable.htm

It seems that if we infer from Bush I and Carter's final numbers (in the 30's) Bush still has a way to go before he's in trouble. But Ford ranged from 47% to 51% right before he lost in 1976 (near where Bush is right now). That gives hope - especially since it seems that Bush's reelect numbers are always a lot lower than his "approval" rating.

[paulsbc]

10. Clinton

was pretty far down at this time IIRC. He ended up winning convincingly, so numbers right now really do not mean squat, they can rise and fall rapidly (as we are seeing now with Bush's numbers down many %age point in a few months).

[tom_paine]

8. When he leaves the Imperial Palace...and we can call it White House again

Not a second before.

But I don't expect that to happen. Such things only happen in democracies...in Free Nations.

But we are not really technically that anymore...as much as this twilight may seem as if it is so. It is just a pale and wretched remnant. Counting the clock down on it's improbable existance and how it lasted even as long as it did.

[kimchi]

11. Exactly.

When our legally elected new Democratic president is inaugurated.

[Sterling]

13. When he is doning his orange jumpsuit

In a federal pen awaiting lethal injection for crimes against humanity with Rummy Condi and the rest of the gang.

I hope you people don't think we are safe just because he loses the election.

[maggrwaggr]

14. if he controls the electronic voting machines he's gonna win

no matter who actually votes for whom.

[Clark Can WIN]

15. For Scrub? When he is here

[E_Zapata]

16. When the U-Haul is pulling out from the White House.

Wait. When the U-Haul actually leaves DC city limits (just to be safe)

How many trucks will it take to hold all that LOOT?

[Lexingtonian]

17. a guesstimate

The story with Bush is that he's had three bounces- January '01, 9/11/01, and March '03. Inauguration, unprecedented shock from unanticipated terrorism, and the Iraq invasion. Other than that, his trajectory is always negative. Approval runs at a fairly constant -2%/month (-25%/year). Reelection numbers held steady at 46%-47% for most of 2001 and 2002, blipped to 50%-51% during March '03, and have declined at -1.5%/month (-18%/year) since.

The basic conservative-leaning electorate is currently about 46%, the liberal-leaning/available electorate around 50%-51%, and nonalignable voters about 3% (Third Party). This is where Karl Rove would be in real deep trouble; unfortunately for us, the liberal growth is mostly in states already deeply Blue or deeply Red and appears to be small or at least below average in the barely Red and barely Blue States. (Florida in particular is just plain murky- no one is publishing any numbers suggesting a trending one way or the other and it's not clear how the November 2002 numbers apply.) Rove was going to try to get 3 million more conservative Christian voters to the polls in '04 to counter it but at the moment it's looking pretty unlikely.

The number you're interested in lies within the conservative electorate. Hardcore Republicans are 30%-31%, softcore Republicans 7%-8%, fairly reliable leaners among swing voters, about 8%-9% of the total electorate. In a month or two Bush will be down to 38% reelect, which means he will have lost all swing vote leaners. It's when he seriously cuts into the softcore Republican voters that the wound is mortal- to get them back he has to do some pretty nasty stuff that the leaners won't appreciate. So maybe a quarter to a half of the softcore voters have to split with him before he gets forced into hard choices of campaign behavior that will attract one but alienate enough of the other group.

So I'll say that 38% is just barely recoverable for him (though he's never been able to do it during this term on his own). 33%-34% is clearly Shovel The Dirt On His Casket time. So I'll put the Irrecoverably Lost label on 35%-36% reelect.

My projection puts W in that range in January. December if things go very badly; and the man just has no luck anymore.

[Raenelle]

23. Wow. Really informative, interesting, perceptive post. Thanks.

You put more information, and backed it up intelligently, than all the pollsters I've heard over the last two years.

Really, thanks.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

24. I have read somewhere that a President has never been

re-elected when his re-elect numbers were below 43%.

[BurtWorm]

18. Bushists fight dirty

so they won't be safe until their asses are out on the street.

[JHB]

19. When his successor is sworn in!

To paraphrase Yogi, it'll be safe to say he's history when he's history!

[Cat Atomic]

20. When the electronic voting machines are removed.

.

[OldSoldier]

21. In this guy's case, five years after he's dead

If he can receive fewer votes than the Democrat did in Florida and still take the state, he can win when he's dead. It's not unprecedented--remember Mel Carnahan.

If he does win after he has died, his leadership can only improve.

[Zero Gravitas]

22. At what point is a president considered unelectable?

Bush* was NEVER electable. He was not elected and will not be elected in 2004. The question is will he remain in power in 2005?

[OldSoldier]

25. I was trying to be cute* last time. Here's my real answer.

*And probably failing miserably.

A lot of things could happen; some are good, some not.

The ideal situation is for the electorate to turn him out, the movers take his stuff and he goes back to the pig farm. Likelihood of Bush's being history? Low--as long as PNAC has woven itself into the fabric of official America, we'll always have a Bush Regime. Likelihood of Crawford getting its idiot back? Very good.

Almost as good is for the congressional Republicans to run him off. This will happen if he's seen as having negative coattails--if enough Repugs' reelect numbers drop far enough below their Democratic challengers' that there's no recovery possible (even with Diebold help) and we can tie it in to Bush, Bush will be "urged" to resign for the good of the party.

Impeachment? Not so good--we don't have the money or the votes.

He could be defeated then we'd see the president-elect taken out by terrorists. This would require us to keep the Bush boy until the next election, which of course could only be held in accordance with the Constitution.

He could launch a terrorist act before the election then see the electorate flock to him to keep them "safe from terrorists." This could backfire on him, though: he could launch a terrorist act and either (1) get caught or (2) start getting asked "hang on...if we spent all this money and sacrificed all this freedom to protect us from terrorists, then why did we get attacked?" Either one of those scenarios means a Bush couldn't get elected dogcatcher anywhere in the world.

To answer the original question: I don't see Bush going away soon. The voting machines are all made by Republicans. The head of one of the biggest (Diebold?) has promised to deliver his state to Bush. Given that, Bush will probably be reinstalled and claiming a mandate this time.

[uptohere]

26. Just after they swear in President Edwards

or whomever. Its not over till its over.