Bob Fertik Answers Rangel: "Would Impeachment Rescue Bush?" - No, Americans Can't Wait Til * Is Gone

[Hissyspit]

Bob is responding to Rep. Rangel's declaration that Bush and Cheney have committed impeachable offenses, but that impeachment would cause Bush's approval ratings to go up, which I find even more bizarre a logic than Bob does.

http://www.democrats.com/would-impeachment-rescue-bush

Would Impeachment Rescue Bush?

Submitted by Bob Fertik on June 23, 2007 - 1:12pm. ImpeachForChange
Yesterday I learned there were two Charlie Rangels. As a former prosecutor, Rangel believes Bush is a criminal who should be indicted and imprisoned. But as a Congressman, Rangel believes Bush should not be impeached because Americans would rally to his defense and his polls would rise and Republicans would win the 2008 elections.

Historically, Rangel's argument is contradicted by John Nichols' outstanding book The Genius of Impeachment, which found every time Congress tried to impeach a President of the opposite party, the party of Congress won the next election. As everyone knows, Richard Nixon's party lost the White House in 1976, and Bill Clinton's party lost the White House in 2000.

So why doesn't Rangel think impeaching Bush would lead to Democratic victory in 2008? Because Democrats like Rangel remember the Clinton impeachment differently. They believe Clinton's polls rose during his impeachment, and he ended up politically stronger - in other words, they believe Clinton's impeachment backfired on Republicans.

But even at this simplistic level, Rangel is wrong. Clinton's polls went up during the year he was impeached, but they dropped right after he was acquitted. And Clinton was damaged so badly that key Democrats didn't want him to campaign for Al Gore, even in Arkansas and West Virginia where he might have given Gore an Electoral College majority without Florida. (Whether Clinton would actually have helped or hurt Gore in those states is an unknown question.)

Here are the polls for Clinton:

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Interestingly, when Clinton was finally acquitted, the "rally around the President" effect went away, and Clinton's polls dropped a bit. Clinton had bad months and good months, and he left office with his approval rating over 60%.

The other case study is Richard Nixon:



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One impeachment poll stands out from the others: when Newsweek asked in January if voters wished the Bush Presidency was "over," 58% said yes. If that question was asked again, it would certainly be over 60%. Democrats have nothing to fear from moving beyond investigations into actual impeachment. The American people can't wait until Bush is gone.

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[EFerrari]

1. Thanks! This is the poll that helped me continue to work for impeachment.

Most people want Bush gone. Period. They don't like the label "impeachment" but then, I don't like the label "pantyhose", lol.

K&R