Pollster Suggests Bush Moves Might Be Too Little, Too Late

[Jon8503]

By Eric Pianin and Chris Cillizza - Sunday, May 7, 2006; Page A05

The recent White House shake-up was an attempt to jump-start the administration and boost President Bush's rock-bottom approval ratings, but have those efforts come too late to salvage the presidency? A prominent GOP pollster thinks that may be the case.

"This administration may be over," Lance Tarrance, a chief architect of the Republicans' 1960s and '70s Southern strategy, told a gathering of journalists and political wonks last week. "By and large, if you want to be tough about it, the relevancy of this administration on policy may be over."

Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.), running for the Senate, is tapping voter anger in ads calling for cutting oil tax breaks and pushing alternative fuels. (By Alicia Archuleta -- The Leaf-chronicle Via Associated Press)

A new poll by RT Strategies, the firm headed by Tarrance and Democratic pollster Thomas Riehle, shows that 59 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance, while 36 percent approve -- a finding in line with other recent polls.

Tarrance said it would be extremely difficult for any president to bounce back this late in his administration and reassert influence on Capitol Hill when his approval rating barely exceeds his party's base support and half of all adults surveyed said they "strongly disapprove" of his performance. An overwhelming 73 percent of independents disapprove of Bush's performance, and two-thirds of those "strongly disapprove."


Rest of article @ link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050600909.html

[robbedvoter]

1. Nooo! rearranging chairs on the Hindemburg failed? Shocking!

And it seemed like a foolproof idea!

[MADem]

2. "SOMETHING HAPPENED...."

"Something happened," neo-conservative magazine editor William Kristol said on Fox News this afternoon. "It's going to be a bad few days. We're going to discover something ... It will be something not good for the Bush Administration."

Fox News actually got a phone call from a "top White House official" during Kristol's damning comments, and Kristol was cut off so Bush mouthpiece Chris Wallace could say the Goss resignation is just a harmless part of the "White House shakeup." Sure.

http://www.sploid.com/news/2006/05/fall_of_an_amer.php

Read the whole thing....it's vicious!

[chaumont58]

3. It's the press that's to little too late

The beltway whores gave chimpie a pass, for as long as they could. Finally, some began to break ranks. The emperor has been without clothes the entire time, but the whores couldn't bring themselves to say so. And Bush is the wrong person to have to come back from anything. Underneath the fake ass cowboy is a thoroughly unlikable human being.

He won't be coming back, because the people(including repukes) have gotten a good look at him. If they had known what sort of man he was and is, they wouldn't have voted for him.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. YES YES YES! What you said!

Meat Depressed and This Weak just prove how out of touch the media has become.

[OneBlueSky]

5. Breaking! . . . "Pollster Is Master of Understatement" . . . n/t

.

[AX10]

6. If this holds throughou the fall and...

the Democrats take at least one house, then Bush is done with.