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News :: Regime |
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Bush's Ratings Fall Sharply |
Current rating: 0 |
by Harris Poll
(No verified email address) |
20 Feb 2003
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President's ratings now 52% positive, 46% negative
Colin Powell now the only Cabinet Member or political leader with very high ratings |
ROCHESTER, NY - February 19 - The last two months have taken a heavy toll on the president's popularity, but a modest 52% to 46% majority still gives him positive ratings. Two months ago, almost two-thirds of all adults (64%) gave the president positive ratings and only just over a third (35%) gave him negative ratings.
Other members of President Bush's cabinet, as well as the parties in Congress and Congressional leaders, with one exception, have all seen a huge decline in their popularity since the very high numbers we recorded soon after September 11, 2001. The one exception is Secretary of State Colin Powell. He still enjoys an extraordinarily high degree of popularity, with 76% giving him positive ratings and only 21% giving him negative ratings. These numbers are fractionally better than they were in December 2002, perhaps because of his powerful recent testimony to the United Nations Security Council.
While none of the other leaders has seen as big declines since last December as President Bush, their numbers, nonetheless, are all down very substantially since their peak soon after September 11.
Including results from the latest poll, we see the following declines in popularity since soon after September 11, 2001:
* President Bush down from 88% to 52%, a decline of 36 points.
* Secretary of State Colin Powell down from 88% to 76%, a decline of 12 points.
* Vice President Dick Cheney down from 69% to 45%, a decline of 24 points.
* Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld down from 78% to 56%, a decline of 22 points.
* Attorney General John Ashcroft down from 65% to 51%, a decline of 14 points.
* House Speaker Dennis Hastert down from 52% to 33%, a decline of 19 points.
* The Republicans in Congress down from 67% to 43%, a decline of 24 points.
* The Democrats in Congress down from 68% to 38%, a decline of 30 points.
These are some of the results of The Harris Poll®, a nationwide telephone survey conducted by Harris Interactive® among a sample of 1,010 adults, from February 12 to 16, 2003.
The Importance of Issues
In December only 18% of all adults spontaneously replied "the war" when asked to think of the most important issues for the government to address. This was far below the economy at 34% but ahead of all the other issues.
Now, fully 38% say that "the war" is one of the two most important issues for the government to address, virtually tied with the economy at 37%. Furthermore, the next two issues mentioned most frequently are terrorism (16%) and Iraq/Saddam Hussein (15%). Most other issues which were mentioned by substantial numbers of people have declined in importance: those saying education are down from 11% to 5%, those saying homeland domestic security are down from 9% to 6%, those saying employment/jobs are down from 8% to 5% and those saying health care are down from 10% to 8%.
These responses were not picked from any list. They are the unaided responses of those surveyed.
Methodology
The Harris Poll® was conducted by telephone within the United States between February 12 and 16, 2003 among a nationwide cross section of 1,010 adults (ages 18+). Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.
In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.
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See also:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0219-11.htm
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/
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Comments
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Democrats: It's Time To Lead Or Risk Losing Again |
by James Zogby
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2003
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When Democrats convene their winter meeting in Washington today, they should use the opportunity to question President Bush's plans to drag the nation into what may be a war without end.
Despite the Bush administration's efforts to win support for a war with Iraq, many Americans remain opposed, or at least uneasy and confused. What is the purpose of this conflict? And what will be its costs and consequences? The administration has not tried to answer these questions.
At times, it has argued that the threat of force is needed to press Iraq to comply with U.N. resolutions that require the regime to disarm. On other occasions, Mr. Bush has gone further, speaking of some divine mandate to liberate the people of Iraq from their oppressive leadership.
The former objective is the agreed position of the United Nations. Disarmament still may be accomplished by weapons inspections and continued international pressure. The latter goal, though commendable to some, has little international support and would require a long-term U.S. occupation and a risky nation-building enterprise in Iraq.
If this is the administration's objective, it has not made its case before Congress and the American people. It has not told us how it would be done, what it would require and what are the chances for success.
Instead of presenting a fully developed case, the administration's neo-conservative supporters have projected a sort of adolescent fantasy about this war: It will take a week; it will provide such a shock to the Arab "street" and system that extremists will fall devastated; and democracy will flourish in Iraq and spread to the rest of the Middle East.
A more likely scenario, however, is projected by former U.S. diplomats and military officers who have served in the Arab world. They suggest that this war will take longer and may involve costly and deadly urban warfare and substantial devastation to the country's infrastructure. There is also the risk that a highly destabilized Iraq could create regional tension in Turkey, Iran and beyond. And while it is unlikely that mass uprisings will occur in neighboring Arab countries, there will be an internalization of anger and the resultant spread of extremist anti-American sentiment throughout the region.
This can create deadly long-term consequences for our interests and those of our allies.
More than a decade ago, Colin L. Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, articulated the doctrine that defined the requirements that must be met before the United States should engage in military conflict.
Three of them were that military and political objectives were clearly delineated, that there was a reasonable expectation that the Congress and the American people understood the costs of this commitment and would support it and sustain their support, and that all possible peaceful means of resolving the conflict had been exhausted.
The Bush administration has met none of these requirements. Instead, it has played a shell game with the American people.
As secretary of state, Mr. Powell made the case for one kind of campaign - Iraqi disarmament - while it appears that the administration is heading toward a very different, much more expansive war - regime change. Mr. Powell's calm and thorough multimedia presentation before the U.N. Security Council sought to convince the world that the Iraqi leader is dishonest and brutal. But this is already widely accepted.
The case he did not make was why any of this dishonesty and brutality requires a costly, dangerous and possibly destabilizing war - especially one that risks isolating the United States from many of its important European and Middle Eastern allies and aggravates an already hostile and volatile world public opinion.
Domestically and internationally, the Bush administration has blustered itself way out on a limb and has attempted to browbeat and demean those who have hesitated or refused to join it.
Democrats fell for that game before November's election and lost. They incorrectly assumed that if they gave the president his war-making resolution, the national debate would return to "their" issues: the economy, corporate corruption and health care. They were wrong. Democrats will only compound this error if they don't act now to challenge the administration before it's too late.
Public opinion polls show that while Americans may support a war, that support drops dramatically when they are presented with details such as cost, consequences, time of involvement, casualties and the risk of fighting without U.N. backing.
This fact, combined with tough anti-war resolutions passed by city councils across the United States and recent substantial national demonstrations, make it clear that Americans have many questions and are looking for answers and leadership.
The message for Democrats is, it's time to lead or risk losing again.
James Zogby is president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, a member of the Democratic National Committee and the visiting Batten Professor of Public Policy at Davidson College in North Carolina.
Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun
http://www.sunspot.net/
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