Politics Of Popularity

Weekly Standard: What The President's Poll Numbers Really Mean

(Weekly Standard) 
Clinton's poll numbers remained at lofty levels and still do today. His job-performance rating averaged above 60 percent in his second term. During the week in which the House of Representatives voted to impeach him, his rating was 73 percent, the highest of his presidency. In hindsight, more than 60 percent of adult Americans still regard his presidency as a success. Asked recently if they favored a third term for Clinton, 43 percent of voters said yes. Only 27 percent said they wished Bush would serve another term.

President Reagan, while hardly as unproductive as Clinton in his second term, also profited a bit from the do-little syndrome. His approval rating in June 1985 was 58 percent, well above Bush's today. True, he achieved tax reform, but that was at a time when leading Democrats were on board. And he got along famously with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, all the while marching toward victory in the Cold War. But Reagan had quickly abandoned Social Security reform when the Senate frowned on it and declined to fight for serious spending cuts. Had he pursued those issues in his second term, his popularity would no doubt have sagged.

On Capitol Hill today, Democrats have scarcely disguised their lack of an agenda and unswerving opposition to Bush's. But neither has caused them political pain. The public wants Washington to take up Social Security and make the system solvent. But Democrats haven't suffered for refusing to do either or failing to offer an alternative to Bush's reform plan. Instead, they've gained in polls measuring party preference and gauging whom voters prefer to run Congress.

Bush this week attacked Democrats for adopting "the philosophy of the stop sign, the agenda of the roadblock, and our country and our children deserve better." He declared that political parties "that choose the path of obstruction will not gain the trust of the American people." In the long run, Bush may be right. In the short run, not necessarily.

In crass political terms, you might say Bush is "stuck" with an agenda and a far-reaching one at that. In Iraq, his goal is to create a stable democracy, something that has never before been established in the Arab world. And he has been unflinching in the face of more than 1,700 American military casualties and growing public unease. "Nationally, it hurts us every day a soldier dies," a Republican congressman who supports Bush said.