1832 Blog: Selecting Congenial Polls

Ryan Alexander at the 1832 blog is touting an AP/Ipsos poll that shows President Bush’s approval below 40 percent. At 39 percent, to be precise.

Of recent polls, this is an outlier. It’s the one that shows the lowest approval of Bush.

Further, in the AP/Ipsos sample, 48 percent were Democrats, and only 42 percent were Republicans. This in spite of the fact that the parties are neck-and-neck in terms of party identification in the vast majority of polls.

The AP/Ipsos poll thus had a moderately biased sample. That happens, even to reputable polsters, and it’s the reason one should not make too much of any single poll.

Interestingly, today’s Rasmussen poll has Bush approval at 48 percent.

That too is an outlier, and the true figure in probably still in the middle to low 40s.

Given the fact that, in spite of the media’s best efforts, the public does not particularly blame Bush for the New Orleans disaster, what we have is a President whose approval is significantly below 50 percent, mostly because the Iraq War continues to drag on.

That happened to Harry Truman too, and his war was the Korean War.

Alexander concludes that “President Bush has a very tough road ahead.” Probably so. But not as tough as Democrats would like. A successful election in Iraq, and even a modest drawing down of American troops in that country could turn things around fairly dramatically.

And as the case of Truman proves, even if Bush should leave office unpopular, history might well smile on him. If Iraq succeeds as a nation, history certainly will.