Chris Bowers, over at MyDD.com thinks Bush has bottomed out.
Jerome first reported on this back in June. Even with only 26% Independent approval, and 18% Democratic approval, Bush still came in at 42% approval nationwide. With the Noise Machine and the Conservative Media Empire holding a near monopoly on the production of current events reality for Bush’s base, we have absolutely no ability to sway it. The only way that Bush’s base will start to move away from him is if the Noise Machine itself starts to move away from him. That doesn’t seem bloody likely.
My analysis on the flip:
First of all, I totally agree with Chris’s overall point. We need to succeed in our efforts to combat the right-wing noise machine. Bush’s numbers are holding in the low-40’s in large, large measure because the media is so deathly afraid to call this administration crooked, dishonest, and incompetent. Too often, the media is an accomplice to crimes and an abettor in diseminating misleading information.
I also think that Bush has a core base of voters that will not abandon him under almost any foreseeable circumstances. I just disagree about the size.
I think there is a 40/40/20 split in this country. That means: about 40% of the people will not currently vote for any Democrat, 40% currently will not vote for any Republican, and 20% are too stupid to know the difference between the two sides. Within this group of stupid people, are a good number of people that have convinced themselves that both parties are worthless, and so neither can be supported.
It’s the latter half of that judgment that is stupid. No matter how bad our representatives are, we still must choose. But, back to the point: The 40/40/20 split may be real today, but it is fully capable of changing tomorrow.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that two things happen:
1) The Iraqis are not able to agree on a constitution and vote on it this year.
2) Rove, Libby, and two or three other members of the administration are indicted for a variety of crimes, mostly involving obstructing justice and perjury.
All other things (e.g. economy) being equal, Bush’s numbers will have to go down. One in four independents support the President now. That number will decrease. The media will turn on Bush, and vulnerable Republicans will run fleeing from the White House.
Personally, I am hoping that the Iraqis succeed in ratifying a constitution and electing a government before February, 2006. I want our boys and girls to come home.
But the difficulties emerging around the constitution look daunting, and the possibility of a real setback in Iraq are looking more and more inevitable.
It’s also looking more likely that Rove and Libby are going to be indicted. So, it’s not going out on a ledge to speculate about the possible political repercussions of a dual disaster hitting the Presidency sometime this fall or winter.
Big events shift voting coalitions. JFK’s assassination created a Democratic supermajority. LBJ’s civil rights act flipped the regional bases of the two parties. Nixon’s abuse of power created another supermajority bloc for the Dems.
We have been in a slow march back from the 1974 elections ever since they occurred. Since at least 1988, our elections have been 40-40-20 affairs. The 20% of the people that are stupid enough to be swayed by last-second ad-blitzes, or myopic enough to fail to pick a side, have been deciding the elections.
It’s now common wisdom that the best way to win an election is to pander to your 40% base, and try to win 11% of the idiot population through careful framing, poll-testing, and general strategic bullshitting.
But there is a second way to win an election. You can win an election by enlarging your base from 40% to over 50%.
Big events change the peoples’ perceptions of the parties and what they stand for. When the most famous Democrats were FDR and Woodrow Wilson, and our bloc base was southern, it would have been absurd to think of the GOP as tougher on national defense. But, rabid anti-communism and support for expensive defense programs on the right, combined with the emergence of a anti-war anti-nuke movement on the left, has shifted the public consciousness.
Such shifts take time. But Bush has already alienated the paleoconservatives and the libertarians in his base. His support is down to a quarter of independents. In my opinion, he has not yet begun to bottom out. We are on the cusp of a bloc-shifting event, where Republicans are going to get tarred with reputations for military adventuresomeness, economic profligacy, basic dishonesty, and political corruption.
Bush and his noise machine are very good at spinning small-to-medium events. But they can’t spin indictments, and they can’t put Iraq back on its timeline if events spiral out of control.
If those two things happen this year, Bush’s numbers will plummet even further. And because that plummeting will be coming out of his most ardent supporters, it will mean a BIG EVENT has occurred that will enlarge the Democratic bloc for an election cycle or two…or possibly longer.
