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can beat up your president
may have suddenly wondered what that strange, painful
yelping sound was drifting in the dark recesses of the media
ether. No I’m not talking about the immigration debate,
though there is plenty of political wind there as well. Instead,
it was an opinion poll.
No, its not another survey showing Bush shaving yet more
points off his Nixon-esque approval rating. These days that’s
not even worth writing a column about. (Okay, okay, call me
when he hits the teens. I’ll tap something out.) Besides
conservatives seem to have given up their once beloved
standard bearer as having succumbed to the strange and
mysterious forces of evil - or worse, liberalism. As the right
wing further separates from the smoldering remnants of the
Republican base, red Americans seem as likely to curse the
Bush name as blue ones. Indeed, it’s getting harder and
harder to tweak conservatives over a president who they
seem increasingly unwilling to claim as one of their own.
So, no its not just that Bush is losing ground. It’s who he’s
losing ground to. And that just may tweak conservatives
after all.
A recent CNN Opinion Research poll of 1,021 adults found
that Americans favored ex-President Bill Clinton over
George W. Bush in every category studied.
Ouch.
Of course, some of the results were unsurprising. It’s nothing
to write home about when Bill “I feel your pain” Clinton wins
on such touchy-feely particulars as the economy (63%-26%)
or solving problems of ordinary Americans (62%-25%).
These are Clinton specialties, hanging curve balls to the
Albert Pujols of pathos politics.
Other figures however were less predictable. Respondents
favored Clinton on foreign affairs (56%-32%) and national
security (46%-42%.) Not traditionally issues Clintonistas
bring up when mounting a spirited defense of our forty-
second president. More shocking still, Clinton bettered Bush
even in areas of public policy that for decades have caused
most Democrats to go into wince-and-mumble mode. On the
topic of taxes, long the GOP’s most unscalable political
rampart, Slick Willie bested W easily 51%-35% and in
perhaps the juiciest turn of the knife Bush lost to Clinton 46%
-41% - on the issue of honesty.
Clinton? Honesty?
Luke, I feel a great disturbance in the Force.
These are not issues where Republicans just perform well,
mind you. These are issues Republicans invented. When
the GOP begins losing debates to Bill Clinton over character
and taxes, something is indeed vibrating wrong in the
cosmos. There’s Kryptonite in the room all right, but
Superman looks fine. It’s Lex Luthor who seems a bit peaked.
More than anything else, the poll is interesting for what it
shows about the great American middle. Approval ratings in
the low thirties may be heady things for anti-Bush Dems but
when all is said and done they are largely attributable to
conservatism’s worsening case of cognitive dissonance and
hence mean little. Angry righties may be suffering buyer’s
remorse but in the end they have few other places to shop.
They’ll likely head back to GOP country when the cards are
down and the votes are counted. This, however, is a
different animal. No dittohead worth his Gitmo Gear is going
to choose anyone named Clinton on issues reminiscent of
April 15 or Monica Lewinsky. These aren’t conservatives.
This is a rebellion from the center. That’s why this poll
should be both terrifying for Republicans and instructive for
Democrats.
Or to be more precise, it should be terrifying for Republicans
IF it is instructive for Democrats. Only if the Dems learn the
lesson Clinton illustrated so well about the durability of a
center-left coalition, will the GOP feel the real sting of this
discontent. If the Democrats fail once again to unite around
the centrist legacy of the only president they’ve managed to
elect in the last quarter century, they will squander yet
another in a seemingly endless series of opportunities. If on
the other hand, they listen and give the moderates
something to support, the Republican Party may find that a
humiliating CNN survey is the least of their problems.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/12/bush.clinton.
poll/index.html
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