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January 05, 2005

How much is that "political capital" worth?

We've heard Bush, Cheney and others talk about political capital and mandates based on the reported election results from November. Just yesterday I heard Rep. Tom DeLay on the radio talking about how the GOP has a mandate from the election... that the people have spoken and they want the GOP to push their agenda thru Congress. But, does Bush have the political capital that he says he does? Does DeLay?

PollingReport.com has added several new categories, each based on polls taken in the later half of December. One is on 2006 Congressional preferences. An Ipsos-Public Affairs poll on 2006 Congressional preferences asked respondents if the election were held today which major party they would want to control Congress. 51% said Democrats, 44% said Republicans. That doesn't sound like Tom DeLay's Congressional Republicans have the political capital he seems to think they have.

The approval/disapproval trend lines for Bush don't look too good, either. They show his approval ratings dropping more sharply than they have since last April when the Iraqi insurgency flared up and a lot of our soldiers started dying over there.

Another new category is on what Americans foresee for the year ahead. The numbers don't look good, nor do they seem to match the rhetoric coming from the GOP. Notably, 54% said they foresee 2005 being one of economic difficulty, while only 44% foresee it being a year of economic prosperity.

Perhaps most damning for the notion of a GOP mandate at the Presidential level is in another new category (2008 election) and based again on the same Ipsos-Public Affairs poll. Respondants were again asked if the election were held today would you vote for the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate. Only 44% said they would vote for the Republican today, while 48% said they would vote for the Democratic.

Where's the mandate?

Posted by Kevin at January 5, 2005 08:52 PM