Poll:
Most Think Bush on Wrong Track

Findings of pre-State of the Union AP survey are a stark change from 2002

AP/ MSNBC 22jan2007

WASHINGTON - Americans seem sour on the state of the union in advance of President Bush’s address on the subject. A poll finds most believe the country is on the wrong track — a complete flip from five years ago.

Most people also are not confident that Bush and the Democrats who now control Congress and share responsibility with him for running the country can work together to solve its problems, an Associated Press-AOL News poll finds.

At the same time, Americans see the president as likable, decisive and strong — but also stubborn. And only a minority think he is honest — 44 percent, down from 53 percent two years ago.

Bush delivers his State of the Union address Tuesday night, nearly two weeks after he told the country he is sending 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq in a new effort to end violence there.

The White House says the speech will focus on a few issues, energy and health care among them, on which Bush might be able to reach agreement with Democrats, who control the House and Senate for the first time during his two-term presidency.

Two-thirds of Americans, 66 percent, think the country is on the wrong track. That’s about the same as a year ago, when 65 percent thought so, the poll found.

Reversal That’s a stark reversal from mid-January 2002, when 68 percent said the country was on the right track and 29 percent said it was not. Then, the nation was still coming to grips with the terrorist strikes four months earlier on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people. And, U.S. troops Bush sent to Afghanistan had toppled the Taliban government that harbored the terrorists believed responsible.

After the United States led an invasion of Iraq in March 2003, public support for the mission there began to slide as the war continued, the U.S. death toll climbed and the violence raged on.

John Raab, 77, of Allentown, Pa., a conservative Republican, said the United States can change course “if people rally around the president and he can get this fiasco in Iraq under control.”

Kerry Moore-O’Leary, a 31-year-old Democrat from Boston, said it will take new leadership.

“I really think the only time we are going to see some real changes is when we elect a new president,” she said. “Even people who are moderate Republicans are going to say that we need someone who’s a breath of fresh air.”

Lawmakers in both political parties have promised more bipartisanship and comity since the November elections, when voters took away the reins of Congress from Bush’s Republican Party.

Skepticism lingers But the public appears largely skeptical of those pledges.

Nearly two-thirds, 60 percent, have no confidence that the political institutions at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue can work together to solve the nation’s problems. Overall, the public has grown less confident since the days after the election when nearly half, 47 percent, expressed confidence that Bush and Congress could work together.

Four in 10, or 42 percent, think the country will now be better off with Democrats controlling Congress, while 18 percent think it will be worse off. Thirty-nine percent think it won’t make much difference.

Iraq remains the public’s top concern, with 65 percent disapproving of Bush’s handling of the situation.

Support for sending more troops to Iraq grew slightly after Bush’s speech, although the idea is still unpopular.

Almost one-third of the public — 31 percent — favor the plan, an improvement from 26 percent in a survey done almost entirely before he spoke to the country Jan. 10. Thirty-five percent now believe additional troops will help stabilize the situation in Iraq, also up from 25 percent.

Bush’s overall approval rating inched upward to 36 percent, from 32 percent early in the month. Despite that low score, 53 percent of Americans say he is likable; 58 percent, decisive; and 58 percent, strong.

A stubborn president In the eyes of 83 percent of Americans, he also is stubborn.

“Mainly it’s his ‘stay the course’ attitude,” said Bill Basher, 21, a Republican from Angola, N.Y.

In other survey findings:

Americans rated health care, the economy and Iraq and terrorism the issues they care about most. When asked to choose the issue most important to them personally, 24 percent named Iraq, the top choice.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the first woman in that office, scored a job approval rating of 51 percent, significantly higher than that of Congress, at 34 percent approval.

The telephone poll of 1,005 adults was conducted Jan. 16 through 18 by Ipsos, an international polling firm. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16749860/ 22jan2007

Confidence in Bush Leadership at All-Time Low, Poll Finds

DAN BALZ & JON COHEN / Washington Post 22jan2007

President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday at the weakest point of his presidency, facing deep public dissatisfaction over his Iraq war policies and eroding confidence in his leadership, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

With a major confrontation between Congress and the president brewing over Iraq, Americans overwhelmingly oppose Bush's plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to the conflict. By wide margins, they prefer that congressional Democrats, who now hold majorities in both chambers, rather than the president, take the lead in setting the direction for the country.

Iraq dominates the national agenda, with 48 percent of Americans calling the war the single most important issue they want Bush and the Congress to deal with this year. No other issue rises out of single digits. The poll also found that the public trusts congressional Democrats over Bush to deal with the conflict by a margin of 60 percent to 33 percent.

The president will use his speech to try to rally public opinion behind the troop deployment plan, but during the past 10 days he has made no headway in changing public opinion. The Post-ABC poll shows that 65 percent of Americans oppose sending more troops to Iraq; it was 61 percent immediately after the president unveiled the plan on Jan. 10 in a nationally televised address.

The Senate plans to take up a nonbinding bipartisan resolution opposing the president's new plan for troop deployments. But many Democrats in both chambers advocate even stronger measures designed to block the deployment of the additional troops, including capping the number of troops at their levels of Jan. 1 or putting strings on the money for the new troops. They would have broad initial public support to do so: 59 percent of all Americans, including more than a quarter of Republicans, want Congress to try to block the president's plan to send more troops.

More broadly, Bush will be speaking on Tuesday night to a nation that is deeply pessimistic, with just 26 percent of Americans saying the country is heading in the right direction and 71 percent saying the country is seriously off track. That is the worst these ratings have been in more than a decade.

Bush's overall approval rating in the new poll is 33 percent, matching the lowest it has been in Post-ABC polls since he took office in 2001. Sixty-five percent say they disapprove. Equally telling is the finding that 51 percent of Americans now strongly disapprove of his performance in office, the worst rating of his presidency. Just 17 percent strongly approve of the way he is handling his job.

Only two presidents have had lower approval ratings on the eve of a State of the Union speech. Richard Nixon was at 26 percent in 1974, seven months before he resigned in disgrace because of the Watergate scandal. Harry S. Truman was at 23 percent in January 1952, driven down by public disapproval of the Korean conflict and his firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Just 29 percent approve of Bush's handling of the Iraq war, which is only one percentage point off his career low recorded a month ago, and 70 percent disapprove. Similarly, Bush's approval rating on handling terrorism is at a near-low, with just 46 percent giving him positive marks and 52 percent negative.

Additional signs of Bush's weakened position come in responses to questions about his personal and leadership attributes. Forty percent describe Bush as honest and trustworthy, equaling the low point of his presidency. Barely a third think he understands the problems of people like themselves.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush generally received strongly positive marks on leadership and his ability to handle a crisis. But Hurricane Katrina and the botched federal response, on top of dissatisfaction over Iraq, badly damaged his image on both fronts, and the new poll finds him at another new low on those attributes.

Just 42 percent say he can be trusted in a crisis, with 56 percent saying he cannot -- the first time a majority has given him a negative rating on a crucial element of presidential leadership. Only 45 percent call him a strong leader, which is also the lowest mark of his presidency. His previous low, 47 percent, came two months after Katrina ravaged New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

But the negative assessments of the president continue to stem overwhelmingly from public attitudes about Iraq. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say it was a mistake to go to war there, the highest negative response since the war began. And 55 percent of Americans now say the president has not made the country safer, the first time a majority of the country has reached that conclusion.

Another first-time majority, 52 percent, would prefer to see U.S. forces withdrawn from Iraq to avoid further casualties rather than leaving them until civil order is restored. The poll did not ask about a timetable for such a withdrawal.

Many Americans see Bush falling short of many of the goals he has outlined for his Iraq policy. Just 28 percent say it has contributed to long-term peace and stability in the region, and only 36 percent think it has encouraged the spread of democracy to other Arab countries. At this point, the public is evenly divided on the question of whether the war has made the lives of Iraqi citizens better.

The poll also highlights a major disconnect between the priorities of the American people and the White House over Iraq policy. More than three in five said that it is better to seek a solution to the Iraq conflict through diplomatic and political means, but three in four said they believe Bush is relying mostly on military means.

The midterm elections brought Democratic majorities to the House and Senate, but so far that has had only a modest effect on public approval of the Congress. The Post-ABC News poll found that 43 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, compared to 50 percent who disapprove. On the eve of the elections in November, 36 percent said they approved, 60 percent disapproved.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) draws much more favorable marks than the president. A majority (54 percent) approves of the way she is handling her new job, with 25 percent disapproving and 21 percent undecided. That rating is better than that of former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) when he took power after the 1994 Republican landslide. In late January 1995, his approval rating stood at 40 percent.

Democrats generally receive positive marks from the public, at least relative to the president. By better than 2 to 1 (57 percent to 25 percent), Americans prefer Democrats to set the direction for the country. And by similar margins, the public trusts Democrats in Congress over Bush to deal not only with Iraq, but also with terrorism, the economy and the federal budget.

The Democrats' advantage on Iraq narrowed to an 11-point margin right after Bush's nationally televised speech outlining his new plan, but it has moved back in their direction in the intervening period.

Together, these Democratic advantages combine in the public's assessment that the Democrats in Congress are taking the stronger leadership role in Washington these days: 56 percent say so, while 36 percent think that Bush is. But another reason for this divide may be the Democrats' early pursuit of broadly popular legislation.

Nearly nine in 10 Americans in this poll support raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour (half of supporters would like it higher still), eight in 10 think Medicare should be able to negotiate prescription prices with drug companies, and a majority (55 percent) supports a loosening of restrictions of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. These were three of the six core components of the Democrats' legislative priorities for the first 100 hours of the new House session.

The Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone Jan. 16-19 among a random sample of 1,000 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

source:  22jan2007