Bad News for McCain: Bush Hits New 31% Low in CNN Poll

Every Hillary/Obama partisan (myself included) has their own arguments about why their own candidate is the only one who can beat the Republicans in November, and the other candidate will fail.  Some say that Clinton cannot win if she exercises a coup by superdelegate (I happen to agree); others say that the Wright controversy makes Obama unelectable (after the extraordinary speech he just gave, I strongly beg to differ).  Personally, I believe the race for the nomination is basically already over and it's time for the healing with the Hillary supporters to begin--but that's another story.

Many of us are also deeply concerned about John McCain in the general election; partisans in the two corners each point to their own polls showing how McCain fares better/worse against their own favored candidate.

But all of us should probably take a deep breath and remember that we do stand on highly favorable ground vis-a-vis the GOP.  Not only do we have a significant advantage in fundraising for both our presidential candidates and our Senate and House committees, but the latest CNN poll shows just how strongly the public repudiates the current Republican regime on this tragic anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

From CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Just 31 percent of Americans approve of how President Bush is handling his job, according to a poll released Wednesday, the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

A new poll out Wednesday finds that 67 percent of those surveyed disapprove of President Bush.

Sixty-seven percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey disapprove of the president's performance.

The 31 percent approval number is a new low for Bush in CNN polling, and 40 points lower than the president's number at the start of the Iraq war.

"Bush's approval rating five years ago, at the start of the Iraq war, was 71 percent, and that 40-point drop is almost identical to the drop President Lyndon Johnson faced during the Vietnam War," said CNN polling director Keating Holland.

"Johnson's approval rating was 74 percent just before Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, which effectively authorized the Vietnam War. Four years later, his approval was down to 35 percent, a 39-point drop that is statistically identical to what Bush has faced so far over the length of the Iraq war," he said.

Without a doubt, all the scandals and incompetence of the Bush Administration have taken their toll on his approval ratings.  It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.  But it fairly clear that what has damaged Bush more than anything is the Occupation of Iraq, combined to a certain extent with the miserable response to Katrina.

Now, Bush isn't running for office again; McCain is.  McCain will be able to distance himself from Bush to a certain degree on some of Bush's biggest ethical lapses (though he certainly has his own ethical problems).

But Bush and McCain are tied to the hip on the war in Iraq, and on inaction in the face of hurricane Katrina.  The same two issues that are dragging Bush into the mud, are the same two issues that will doom McCain in the general election.

Best of all?  Obama and Clinton haven't really started going after John McCain yet in any serious way.  In a sense, McCain's popularity is probably at its highest point right now: he's riding on the wave of his nomination victory, and not a single major negative attack has come his way since the New York Times story about his lobbyist "friend".  Whatever poll numbers McCain may be showing today against either Clinton or Obama, they are almost certain to go down as Democrats remind voters that the same reasons they despise Bush are the same reasons they should also despise McCain.  Essentially, it's all downhill from here for McCain.

Mr. 31% is going to be the anvil that sinks McCain no matter whom we nominate in this crazy primary.