for Bush.  And that is before the Iraq vote fraud story, the Miers fight and the Cheney in jail (one can hope, right?) stories of the next week.

You know what these people do when the chips are down: they they start bombing. Who do you think it will be? I'm betting Syria, we've been having some firefights and skirmishes along the border there, US against Syrian troops.

Then, of course, approval will go back up. All those southerners are starting to dislike Bush because he spends too much time talking about domestic stuff and not enough time addressing the troops.

Okay, so I'm a pessimist. But I think there's ample precedent.

Survey USA seems to put out a pretty high volume of good-quality polling data.  I was skeptical of their robo-polls last summer, but they proved to be one of the more accurate pollsters.

I don't know who's funding these regular 50-state polls, but it can't be too cheap to poll that many people, even if the calls are automated.

It's a long way out but Bush is bombing in most of the states with key Senate races next year.

Rhode Island        -41%
Pennsylvania        -26%
Ohio                -24%
Nevada              -23%
Missouri            -20%
Tennessee           -17%
Arizona             -15%

And apart from Nebraska he's also getting hammered in the states where the Dems have any worries about defending seats.

Michigan          -32%
Maryland          -31%
New Jersey        -30%
Washington        -21%
Minnesota         -20%
Florida           -17%

As soon as Bush responds by napalming Omaha, just watch those numbers sink!

texas, too?  i knew i noticed a mass scraping of those damned w04 ovals over the past few weeks.

this is excellent news.

I want to apologize.  There's no rational reason the people in Utah would possibly support Dubya.

However, a poll came out about a month ago listing concerns of people in Utah.  Two of the top ten concerns, were about terrorism - being a victim of a terrorist attack was number 4.  The other was number 9 - fear that the US would be targeted by terrorists again.

Here's my theory: Many Utahns consider themselves to be paragons of American values and they believe the Bushista spin that terrorists hate us because of our values.  So, they reason, Utah would naturally be a terrorist target.

As anyone who has drive through Utah can tell there, there's nothing here a terrorist would want to attack.

that Bush's crappy poll numbers mean big gains for the Dems, but hasn't Bush always been about Himself rather than about the Party, even moreso than most presidents?  In other words, aren't the standard Republican approaches of traditional values and guns and god and taxes and stop-those-welfare-cheats and all that other stuff they've been running on for the past 25 years still going to resonate with the same voters they have always resonated with?  Or perhaps put another way, is it possible that Bush's approval rating are in the toilet because he HASN'T been sticking to those bread-and-butter Republican issues?  It is not clear to me tha the Dems are ready to capitalize.

The numbers for South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas are a bit hard to swallow, especially if the poll was done before the Miers nomination ticked off a chunk of the Christian Right base.  What kind of sample sizes are we talking about here?

give him positive ratings.  He's a net -11% in Kansas and -15% in South Dakota.

for the record, the total 2004 population of the states you mentioned was 10,769,398. The total US population according to Census was 293,655,404. So I calculate the population represented there as 3.6% of the nation.

Pretty good guess--but too generous, even.

!!

of Walter Cronkite's recent remark pertaining to Americans not being smart enough to vote for the candidates they should in elections. Katrina aside, how could those people who voted to stay the course possibly not have known what they were in for unless of course Mr. Cronkite was correct.

Nevertheless, this poll doesn't differenciate between disenfranchised fundies, Democrats and progressives; consequently, it has little meaning in relation to future returns for the Democratic Party or even the possible future direction of this country.

         

In addition to this if you look at the details of the Gallup poll Bush lost 10 points among suburban residents.  I think were seeing the backlash of the gas gouging.  I just can't wait to see the reaction when they get the heating bills for their huge McMansions in the middle of nowhere.  

LDS: Latter Day Saints. http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_lds.html Same top three states, same order, same weighting.

And it makes sense, unquestioning backing of the patriarchy is what traditional Mormons do, and like Catholics they have a leader who is officially infallible. They are natural backers of the Bushwhacker.

Which suggests that Bush is in more trouble than he thinks. If the LDS breaks against him it is likely to go all at the same time. Because while I don't want to make a mockery of anyone's faith, members of the LDS tend to be hyper-respective of authority, and they will take the lead from their Bishop.

And somehow I suspect that a never married, female, childless Supreme Court justice is not exactly what the more than family friendly LDS community was hoping for.

Like the writer of this posting, I was also struck by how southern states aren't in the list of states where Bush's approval is over 50%. After I thought about it, though, I wondered if it is because mountain and "farm belt" states don't have a lot of black or hispanic residents.

Also southern states may be suffering more from the Iraq war in the sense that they may be losing a bigger percentage of troops in Iraq.

What we need is a Democratic narrative that ties it together. We need to tell a story.

The reason the south's approval numbers have tanked? The gas prices in the south have increased more there than in any other part in the nation.

Like any sane person, I am pleased that the percentage of Americans who approve of Bush is growing smaller. However, since their is no substantial political opposition to Bush's policies, how can anything be gained? The "opposition party" is sitting on their hands, so complicit in the war crimes being committed in Iraq they dare not say anything in opposition for fear of being exposed for the imperialist war mongers that they are. As indictment after indictment pile up, they twiddle their thumbs and hide under their desks, lest they be called out for their own corruption. There is no electoral alternative to the continued bloodshed in Iraq, no electoral alternative to free trade fanatacism, no electoral alternative to the ever encroaching fascist police state or to the escalating class warfare being waged against the working class. It's great that Bush's numbers are tanking... but the decreasing numbers of supporters are meaningless when there is no alternative movement and no opposition.