Rock Bottom

Rock Bottom

"Bush Approval Hits New Low," reports ABC News. Their most recent poll finds that 60 percent of the country disapproves George W. Bush's handling of the job of president, and only 39 percent approves.

This follows a CBS News poll earlier this week that found only 33 percent of the country holds a favorable view of President Bush and only 19 percent a favorable view of Vice President Dick Cheney.

How low can they go? Two of my favorite bloggers offer theories.

The Editors, at The Poor Man, offer the BTKWB threshhold. This is a theoretical level of disapproval based on a poll taken after what The Editors suggests would be an extremely unpopular action by the president:

BTKWB (the President’s approval ratings the morning after he pre-empted Monday Night Football in order to Bind, Torture and Kill Wilford Brimley for his own sexual gratification) has generally been taken to be somewhere in the 32-36 percent range, depending on the theoretical models used, and depending on if he uses up the MNF timespot completely, or just pops in during halftime.

It is generally assumed that between 68-64 percent of the general public would disapprove of Wilford Brimley being sadistically murdered on national TV while the President of the United States leered and drooled in a blood-drenched homoerotic fugue that they would be willing to undermine the troops in the field by saying so, and would continue in their disapproval even in the face of such arguments as “the President needs a way to unwind from the pressures of his job”, “there was no other way to be sure he wasn’t a terrorist”, “many terrorists have mustaches, you know”, and even “he might have been hiding Saddam’s WMD in his Quaker Oats."

John Rogers, of Kung fu monkey, takes a less hypothetical approach. He believes that the absolute bottom threshhold for a Republican politician can be measured precisely, and offers an exact figure for this azimuth, which he calls the "Crazification Factor. Rock bottom, Rogers suggests, is 27 percent:

John: Hey, Bush is now at 37 percent approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is --

Tyrone: 27 percent.

John: ... you said that immmediately, and with some authority.

Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27 percent of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5 percent of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27 percent Crazification Factor in any population.

John: Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behavior? I mean, are you creating the Theory of Special Crazification or General Crazification?

Tyrone: Hadn't thought about it. Let's split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification -- either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.

John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US?

Tyrone: Does that seem wrong?

John: ... a bit low, actually.

Note that CBS figure for Dick Cheney again: 19 percent. He's polling a third below Alan Keyes.

Comments

[Keith]

As Bob Harris points out, Cheney's rating is 2 points less popular than cheating on your spouse and 18 points lower than th enumbe rof people who believe in alien abduction. Lepers in the Bible were more popular than our VP.

[Michael "Vendor X" Heaney]

Color me convinced. 27% it is. Cheney's bucking of the trend doesn't surprise me, since a vice president is seen differently than his elected counterpart. VPs are more something we simply "get with" the candidate we elect, a little freebie thrown into the bag which commonly serves little purpose beyond that of whipping boy even at the best of times (in the minds of the citizenry, I mean.)

[B-W]

Note that CBS figure for Dick Cheney again: 19 percent. He's polling a third below Alan Keyes.

The funniest thing I've read in a while!

[Scott]

27% was for a single state - the nation-wide number would probably be higher once you factor in Utah, the deep south, etc.

the President’s approval ratings the morning after he pre-empted Monday Night Football in order to Bind, Torture and Kill Wilford Brimley for his own sexual gratification

Actually, that would improve my opinion of Bush. :-)

[Scott]

That, and since Bush does have an established base (unlike Keyes in IL), that would also take Shrub's rock bottom number higher.

[B-W]

27% was for a single state - the nation-wide number would probably be higher once you factor in Utah, the deep south, etc.

Well, I'm sure some states (such as California and New York) would put a pretty heavy drag on that 27% number, too. (Of course, Illinois tends to be a "Blue state", so you may have the upper hand here....)

[Bob Davis]

Don't forget to add in all the repubs voting based on their "predilictions," i.e. Man-on-Dog aficionados; People whose first girlfriend was a barnyard animal; People who poke bears with sticks to get them to rape 10 y.o. girls; and Men who want to marry their box turtles. That's got to count for at least half their votes after a good get-out-the-vote campaign.

[Madpuppy]

Scary tidbit- apparently part of the reason for Bush's low poll numbers is that some people are abandoning him because he is not conservative enough.

[KCinDC]

True, Madpuppy, the recent erosion among "the base" (or "al qaida" as they say in Arabic) really started after Katrina -- not when we were seeing horrible images of abandoned poor black people on TV, but when in reaction to that Bush decided to throw a lot of money at the problem. Never mind that most of it will probably end up going to Halliburton and Republican contracting companies. Never mind that the base had been fine with years of raiding the federal treasury for corporate welfare and various corruption. The problem was the suggestion that government funds might be used to help poor people. Unthinkable, and certainly against the prosperity gospel of Republican Jesus, in which wealth is a sign that you're blessed by God, and poverty is a moral failure.

[Duane]

Poverty is result of laziness. And Jesus was pretty clear in his condemnation of laziness, particularly lazy black people. Or something.

[ding]

i live in chicago and i witnessed the powerful crazy cloud surrounding alan keyes; normal republicans RAN AWAY from this man.

and can i say that this was the funniest effing thing i've read in *days*?
'cause it was.

[Shag from Brookline]

Old cheerleaders never die, they just lose their megaphones. "We can't hear you, Goerge W!"

[Lila]

I like it. I risk the wrath of my fellow Southerners and liberals by suggesting a similar phenomenon on the left, which usually goes by the term "yellow dog Democrat" around here (i.e., someone who would vote for the Democratic candidate if the Democratic candidate were a yellow dog).

someone who would vote for the Democratic candidate if the Democratic candidate were a yellow dog

I'd vote for the yellow dog - they just insist on running liberals instead. :-)

[Duane]

Ideal candidate: a socially-conscious yellow dog that attacks Republicans on site.

['As You Know' Bob]

Coincidentally, “27%” also happens to be the percentage of the American public that still supported Richard Nixon as he was admitting his crimes, resigning, and getting on the helicopter to go into disgraced exile. He did everything BUT rape Wilford Brimley, and yet 27% of the public still "Approved" of his handling of his job - - as he was resigning.

So, yes, there is a sizeable proportion of the American public who are batshit crazy.

[Scott]

27% of the public still "Approved" of his handling of his job - - as he was resigning.

So, yes, there is a sizeable proportion of the American public who are batshit crazy.

27% x 2 (for two political parties - batshit crazy people can dislike Nixon and Bush because they aren't in 'their' party) makes over half the nation batshit crazy.

As a libertarian, I can certainly believe that. :-)

[pharoute]

I thought 19% was the standard for batshit crazy; Ross Perot's percent in 1992.

[Devon]

As a recovering libertarian, I can attest to most libertarians falling into the batshit crazy category. Perhaps not you, Scott, but certainly the vast majority of them. That means half the nation plus, like, 0.0005% more.

[Scott]

As a recovering libertarian, I can attest to most libertarians falling into the batshit crazy category.

Most devout religious believers think there's something wrong w/ 'atheists' - the Romans called the early Christians atheists because they wouldn't worship their gods either.

[Ray]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/americas/2297471.stm

[Ray]

Sure, he's just one guy, but he's the one guy people thought would be a good public face for the party.

[Scott]

I'm a "small-l" libertarian, not a party member. Laugh at him all you want.

[Jeff R.]

Keyes is a pretty good metric, but I'd like to offer another one. In 2002, the Republican party didn't bother to run a candidate against Kerry when he ran for reelection to the Senate. The Libertarian party ran a virtual nobody: the husband of the Libertarians perenial gubernatorial candidate. He got 18.4%. In the governors race, which was hotly contested, the Libertarian got 1.1%, just beating the Green party candidate at 0.74%. The anit-war write-in candidate that ran agains Kerry got more votes. Remember, this is Massachusetts, so the absolute lower limit nationwide is around 18%.

[Bob Goatse]

Maybe those 27% voted for Keyes because they thought he'd be more entertaining?