Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Don't Panic

Bush approval rating rebounds in new poll

I know that this news is hard to fathom; other than cheaper gas, nothing has changed. (Though I've been saying for a long time that, reality be damned, a lot of people decide whether things are going well based on the price at the pump.) But one thing has changed since Bush's super-low ratings earlier in the year: There's an election on. Elections tend to rally people to their standard bearer, for good or ill. (Remember how Democrats stood behind John Kerry?) The poll confirms that this is the reason for Bush's rebound:
Bush's approval rating edged up largely on the strength of Republicans coming back to the fold with 86 percent saying they support him now, compared to 70 percent in May, USA Today said.
That doesn't change the discontent in the country with his performance, only how it's quantified. It will take more than poll numbers like these to convince me that people are really unlearning the lessons of the last six years of misrule.

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