Can Bush's Failure Become Our Success?
Cross-posted from Moral Questions Weblog.
There's been a lot of discussion of wheather it is possible for Bush's approval rating to fall below 40%. At this point, I would say I think there is a real possibility. Teixeria yesterday, commenting on the recent ARG poll argues that it is in fact likely.
Some have argued, however, that a sub-40 Bush approval rating is unlikely to appear because his high support among Republican identifiers makes it difficult for his approval rating to drop much more that it already has. I don't believe that is the case.
To begin with, thought it depends on the poll, there is still considerable room for Bush approval to fall among independents. In the latest CBS News poll, his approval rating among independents is 37 percent. Given that his approval rating in that poll was 42 percent, if his approval were to fall to around 30 percent among independents and all else remained equal,, his overall approval rating would fall to below 40 percent.
Just as important, the assumption that Bush's approval rating among Republicans will remain steady is unwarranted. For example, if you compare his rating by party ID in the latest CBS poll to his rating by party ID in the late February CBS poll, his approval has fallen from just over 90 percent to 84 percent, a decline of 7 ponts. That's almost as much as the analagous decline among Democrats (8 points) and actually more than the decline among independents (5 points).
You see a similar pattern in a number of other polls. Bush's approval rating among Republicans has fallen in recent months from around 90 percent to around 85 percent. It is entirely possible it will decline further if the difficulties of the Bush administration continue to deepen. Certainly, there is no sound reason to suppose Republican identifiers will somehow be immune from overall political trends.
That's good enough for me. The real question is does it really matter. Is it significant if President Bush's approval rating falls below the 40% mark? There's a lot of very big questions tied up in this little question. To understand them, we need to understand why we are asking this question, and that is because (assuming you are a Democrat) we are looking for an eventual realignment to emerge from Bush's abysmal ratings. Just because voters don't approve of Bush's preformance doesn't mean they'll start voting Democratic.
Nevertheless, there are certainly some good signs appearing in the realignment department. For one thing, as has been noted throughout the liberal blogosphere, in the ARG poll Bush's approval rating among independents is identical with those of Democrats. Also, according to Teixeria, there is very good news for Democrats among white working class women.
The new EMILY's List report on a large-scale survey by Garin-Hart-Yang and The Feldman Group points out that working class (non-college-educated) white women (whom I have maintained was the key group that swung to Bush and the GOP in the 2004 election) now support the Democrats by 18 points in a prospective 2006 Congressional matchup. In 2004, this same group supported Bush by 18 points and House GOP candidates by 15 points.
Wow. That's a huge swing. If anything like this holds up in 2006, the Republicans are in big trouble.
Of course, realignments don't just fall into your lap. Outside events might make certain voting blocks open to appeal, but its still your responsibility to make the appeal. What all of this can best be viewed as is an oppurtunity. The Democrats over the next few years can to make a big play to reestablish themselves as the majority party, but they must offer a compelling message in order to do so. We'll just have to hope we made the right choice with Chairman Dean in this department.
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