In November of 2001, a month after the attacks on the World Trade Centers, President Bush's national approval rating was at an all-time high of 88%. Unfortunately for Senator John McCain it's not 2001, it's 2008 and the President's approval rating has soaring like a stone, straight down to an amazingly awful 33%, according to Fox News. Hopefully for McCain, the approval rating does not follow Bush’s endorsement like the Bush family. A day following the President Bush’s announcement, his brother Jeb Bush, governor of the infamous “hanging-chad” state, gave his official endorsement. More importantly, perhaps, than endorsing McCain with his 33% approval rating is the 60% disapproval rating that comes with the Bush endorsement (7% undecided). After all, the president obviously gave himself the endorsement last election and according to the American people, as of today, he made a poor decision. It may be that those people who are not confident in the president’s leadership, will look beyond the support and choose not to judge the decision based on the president’s track record.
Is this a sign to the American people why not to vote for McCain? The answer is most definitely, no. The American political system is much to complex for this to be a deciding factor, in an ideal world. However, these elections do not take place in an ideal world, under ideal circumstances. They take place in the here and now and the fact of the matter is that the president’s endorsement does not come with the clout that it has in the past. Furthermore, the influence that is tied to this particular endorsement in this particular election is less than favorable.
The endorsement by President Bush is likely to help McCain in the South as he pursues the Republican nomination. The true test comes if McCain is successful in his bid because the president’s current approval rating sits at 63% of republicans but at a low 11% of democrats and 30% of independent voters. The approval rating of a president is traditionally lower with the opposing party voters, but even when his approval rating was at its lowest, his popularity with democrats was higher than today.
With the nominations slowly coming into view and the race for the presidency beginning to heat up, it seems that if the Republican Party truly wished to be in office next year, it may have been prudent for President Bush to graciously give his endorsement to the eventual winner of the democratic nomination.
Apparently Bush didn't really mean it when he said he wasn't going to get involved in the primaries. Oh well, politicians say a lot of things they don't really mean. I'm not surprised.
><>Brian
I find it interesting that so many people think an endorsement from Bush is going to be so damaging to McCain. The fact is, McCain opposed Bush for 8 years, and I don't think a measly endorsement from Bush - when McCain is the only Republican who could realistically win the presidential race - is going to do much to hurt him. It might even help him by giving him the support of more conservative Republicans.