This thread doesn't make a lot of sense.
RIJIMMY entitles it "Bush was a divider" I'm guessing to make the point that Obama is really much
more divisive and we're all a bunch of hypocrities and he has the polling data to prove it.
What this article seems to try to hide though, is that the actual Pew poll is in context of FIRST YEAR PRESIDENTS.
Here's the real poll from Pew:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1178/pol...roval-historic
Bush campaigned as a uniter and to some degree was (for example working with Ted Kennedy on the No Child Left Behind Act), and had very high approvals after 9/11 to the end of his first year.
It wasn't really until after the start of the Iraq war when the GOP used terrorism issues to win Congress by painting Democrats as unpatriotic and defeatists.
This is where Bush really inherited the label of a divider by the mainstream.
By contrast, after only two months, Obama's support from Dems isn't much different than Bush's support by Republians. The difference is a 9 point gap in the opposition party, which makes perfect sense as Bush had up to an 88% approval after 9/11, so clearly he had very high democratic support.
I know, I know...I'm just rationalizing things. But I'm afraid that this time the proof is in the numbers.
RIJIMMY's assertion just doesn't compute.
-spence
Hybrid Mode
