news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051013/pl_nm/bush_politics_dc
President George W Bush to rebuild support and restore public confid ence, three new opinion polls show his approval ratings sinking ever dee per in a sea of political troubles and pessimism.
A new Fox News poll also showed Bush's approval rating dropping to its lo west level in that survey, falling to 40 percent from 45 percent since l ate September. "Bush's numbers are going from bad to worse, and there is no silver linin g," said Pew pollster Andrew Kohut. "People just see more and more bad n ews everywhere and they don't see a way out." The sinking poll numbers, which have threatened key elements of Bush's se cond-term agenda and made Republicans increasingly nervous about next ye ar's midterm elections, followed weeks of renewed activity designed to s how Bush in command. The president has made eight trips to the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast s ince early September, delivered major speeches on fighting terrorism and rebuilding New Orleans and gave a national television interview. None of it eased public pessimism on a range of issues, including the eco nomy and the war in Iraq, or turned around Bush's already low approval r atings, pollsters said. The NBC poll, released on Wednesday, found 69 percent thought the worst w as ahead on gas prices and only 28 percent thought the country was heade d in the right direction. The Pew poll, released on Thursday, found 29 percent satisfied with the c ountry's direction. For the first time, a majority of Americans thought the Iraq war was not going well and solid majorities said Bush had made the economy and budget deficit worse. "What people don't like is uncertainty," said independent pollster Dick B ennett of American Research Group. "What they really don't like is a pre sident who doesn't acknowledge uncertainty and deal with it. Americans c an take bad news, but they want a way out of it and they don't see that from Bush."
CIA operative's identity, as evidence Republicans have been corrupted by powe r The NBC poll found Americans preferred Democratic control of the US Con gress to Republican leadership by 48 percent to 39 percent, helping fuel rising Democratic hopes for 2006. Democrats need to gain 15 House seats and six Senate seats to regain control of the two chambers. Nearly all polls, including the NBC and Pew surveys, found Bush's approva l ratings among his Republican base holding strong at more than 80 perce nt. "This is an opportunity for Democrats, but we haven't seen any evidence y et that they are going to make big gains," said Karlyn Bowman, a poll an alyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. With 13 months to go until the November 2006 congressional elections, Rep ublican strategists say there is plenty of time to recover. Bush's appro val rating is still better than the lowest rating for any president in t he past 40 years. "Not only is it not unusual for a president to have an approval rating at 38 percent, it's almost predictable," Republican consultant Whit Ayres said. "Every president has rough patches, it says nothing about the ulti mate historical judgment." He said an improvement in gas prices, a dip in violence in Iraq or other good news for Bush could start to brighten his political picture quickly . "There is no question the country is in a funk and some kind of event wil l have to turn it around," he said.
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