Say Anything Blog

This is a point I've made here before:

The Washington Post is trumpeting its latest poll, showing President Bush's approval rating at an "all-time low" of 45%. Actually, though, considering that the poll was of "random adults," conducted over four evenings, three of them on the weekend, with only 29% Republicans in the survey, the result is hardly surprising. In fact, Bush's approval ratings on the key issues has barely budged compared to prior Post/ABC surveys. Here is what is interesting, in the present context: the issue on which Bush scores worst is not Iraq, the economy or Social Security. It is immigration. News accounts often implicitly assume that more or less all of those who are critical of the administration are on the administration's left. In fact, though, on the issue where the President's position is least popular, the criticism comes almost entirely from the right, some of it from people who on other issues describe themselves as moderates or even liberals.

I think that Iraq has little bearing on the present dissatisfaction with Bush's administration. I believe that if Bush were doing more than just talking about taking a stand against illegal immigration he'd be enjoying better approval numbers. Same goes for his refusal to take a stand against any of the free-spending legislation from Congress that's been put in front of him (some of which was actually his idea to begin with) and his signing into law of the campaign finance reform legislation.

Yes Bush has been strong on national security, but he's been to the left of his base on just about every other issue. That has a lot of people ticked off. Ticked off enough to vote Democrat? Not likely. These people aren't going to start voting for the greater of two evils just to spite the lesser, but it doesn't mean they won't put some political pressure on the President between elections.