The Washington Limbo—How Low Can They Go?

President Bush’s approval ratings have reached a new low:

June 21, 2007 – In 19 months, George W. Bush will leave the White House for the last time. The latest NEWSWEEK Poll suggests that he faces a steep climb if he hopes to coax the country back to his side before he goes. In the new poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday nights, President Bush’s approval rating has reached a record low. Only 26 percent of Americans, just over one in four, approve of the job the 43rd president is doing; while, a record 65 percent disapprove, including nearly a third of Republicans.

The new numbers—a 2 point drop from the last NEWSWEEK Poll at the beginning of May—are statistically unchanged, given the poll’s 4 point margin of error. But the 26 percent rating puts Bush lower than Jimmy Carter, who sunk to his nadir of 28 percent in a Gallup poll in June 1979. In fact, the only president in the last 35 years to score lower than Bush is Richard Nixon. Nixon’s approval rating tumbled to 23 percent in January 1974, seven months before his resignation over the botched Watergate break-in.

There are any number of reasons for Mr. Bush’s low ratings, starting with the circumstances under which he became president in 2000, which continues to stick in some people’s craws. The war in Iraq is probably the most important reason and I expect that the presidential approval ratings will drop farther as the U. S. casualties rise there as a consequence of the offensive currently being conducted in Iraq’s Diyala province. This is the fundamental dilemma that Mr. Bush has always faced: if the war is prosecuted vigorously, U. S. casualties rise and approval goes down; if the war isn’t prosecuted vigorously conditions in Iraq continue to deteriorate, people wonder what in the world we’re doing there, and approval goes down.

Immigration reform, an extremely divisive issue with no solution that will please everyone, has unquestionably eroded Mr. Bush’s support within his own base.

President Bush isn’t alone. Congress’s approval ratings are falling, too:

PRINCETON, NJ — The honeymoon phase is over for the new Congress, as the public’s ratings of Congress are down again this month. The latest congressional job approval rating (24%) is the lowest for the institution since Democrats took control of both houses in January, and is far below the 37% registered in February. The decline has been most evident among Democrats, whose ratings of Congress now match those of Republicans. Congressional job approval ratings are typically not positive, but ratings as low as the current one are uncommon. The poll also finds that only about one in four Americans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in this country, little changed since last month but still at its lowest point in over a decade.

Promising more than can be delivered is probably only one source of the dissatisfaction:

WASHINGTON — In the heat of their successful campaign last year to retake the House and Senate, Democrats made voters promise after promise.

They promised to end the war in Iraq. They promised to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. They promised to lower prescription drug prices for seniors and raise the minimum wage.

But six months after taking over Congress, Democrats find they have accomplished little of their agenda. Perhaps not coincidentally, Congress’ job approval rating has reached a dramatic low, tumbling 13 points since February to 24 percent, according to the Gallup Poll.

Republicans, damaged by a faltering war in Iraq, corruption scandals and a politically weakened President Bush, happily cite such figures to argue that the Democrats are incapable of governing. “The American people are smart enough to know when they’ve been had,” said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which seeks to elect Republicans to the House.

Democrats are scrambling to find a way to explain to voters, and themselves, why they have accomplished just one of their heralded objectives – raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour. The high-profile failure to strike agreement on immigration reform has added to the public’s discontent, and on Thursday the Senate was struggling to rescue a much-touted energy bill.

If they can’t reverse the trend, some Democrats are starting to worry, their majority could be short-lived. This week, Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) reviewed the grim polling data for his Democratic colleagues during a senators-only lunch. Similarly, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) shared his view of the polls in a closed-door meeting with Democratic representatives.

There are other reasons. Safe seats, political dynasties, bad weather, the 24 hour news cycle, and an “if it bleeds, it leads” approach to reporting the news probably all contribute to a cynicism about the political system as well.

Some have suggested that this general cynicism creates an opportunity for a third party candidate whether of the independent or Green sort. Frankly, I doubt it. The deck is thoroughly stacked in favor of the two major parties and, in the short run, the most a third party candidate can achieve is a perverse result in which his or her supporters throw the election to the major party candidate they like least.

My concern is that the cynicism may lead to a general political upheaval. I wonder what Lincoln’s approval ratings were like early 1861. Not that Bush is any Lincoln but it’s easy to forget just how unpopular a president Lincoln was for much of his presidency.

I’ve already made my prescription. We need to introduce a significantly more moderate tone into our political sphere, a moderation that takes three forms. There needs to be a moderation in political discourse, a moderation in the process away from the scorched earth approach that has been taken lately, and a moderation in the political approaches proposed and adopted.