"What is the message of these numbers? One stands out: In his entire first term, only three episodes so far have gained approval for Bush. All were related to terrorism and to war. They were 9/11, the war on Iraq, and the capture of Saddam. Taken together, the five months when Bush gained popularity on these events account for 89 percent of all the variation in the change of Bush's job approval, measured by the average of these polls.
But equally, consider what has happened in the other 32 months. The record is remarkably consistent: In the range of approvals above 48 percent or so -- that is, among voters who did not vote for him in 2000 -- Bush loses support, month after month. And he does so at what is nearly a constant rate. Tick, tock.
Measured by a number of different techniques (including regression analysis), Bush's monthly loss of approval appears to be a little less than 1.6 percentage points -- every month, on average. And the variation around that average (standard error) is quite small: less than one-fourth of that value. That means that in 95 percent of the cases, the decline is between 0.9 and 2.3 percent per month. Tick, tock.
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http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/02/09/bush_approval/index.html
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