Michael Barone [1] explains why President Bush is giving the left such fits… he’s effective and will be moreso this term.
“Bush carried 31 states that elect 62 of the 100 senators. He carried approximately 250 congressional districts, to about 185 for Kerry (the final counts aren’t in). Bill Clinton was re-elected with 49 percent of the vote in times of apparent peace and apparent prosperity — the most favorable posture in which to run. George W. Bush was re-elected with 51 percent of the vote in times not of apparent peace and apparent prosperity. Clinton’s 49 percent in retrospect looks like a ceiling for his party. Bush’s 51 percent may be more in the nature of a floor.
This thinking of Barone’s would seem to be the agreed to by the polling trends [2]of late… [3]
They’re all trending upward. As Boortz [4] notes this morning,
Following the successful elections in Iraq that even the media couldn’t gloss over, a new poll puts President Bush’s approval rating at 57%, according to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. Also included in that poll was the question of whether or not sending troops to Iraq was a mistake. Almost the same amount – 55% – said no, it was not.
The Democrats made Iraq their number one issue. It defeated John Kerry, lost the Democrats seats in both houses of Congress and in all levels of government and the trends have gotten even worse for the Democrats since those elections, as all the ‘sky is falling’ nonsense from the Democrats gets exposed as the bilge it is. The Democrats for example swore that the Iraqi elections would never happen. Of course, they did… and the result os a lot of face lost for the Democrats who are now looking for cover for their misdeeds on that one… and that’s only one problem of many such.
The degree of losing face is why the Democrats are opposing Bush on everything he does… including stuff they called for during the election; They’re simply desperate.