Daily Kos Continues to Leave Out Important Numbers

Everytime a new Presidential Approval Rating comes out the Daily Kos reports it and, of course, adds its own commentary about how awful and stupid and [fill in the blank] President Bush is. Today the Daily Kos was quick to report that President Bush is the "most unpopular President -- EVER!" This, mind you, cites ONE polling company (Gallup) and, while I'm not disputing that Americans aren't pleased with the President, leaves out another important statistic: the Congressional approval rating.


Real Clear Politics, which averages the various results, reports that the current approval rating is 24%, with a disapproval rating of 64.5%.

President Bush's RCP approval rating average is 34%, with a disapproval rating of 60.2%.

64% is Bush's highest disapproval rating, but 70% is Congress's highest disapproval rating.
36% is Bush's highest approval rating, but 28% is Congress's highest approval rating.

Let's take some other things into consideration:

1. President Bush is not running for re-election. He can't. And he's already said that his legacy will be determined not now but many years from now, as most legacies are. The Dems, however, are running for re-election (in terms of keeping the majority in Congress).

2. President Bush has been in office for 7 years. The Dems have been in charge for less than one year.

I'm not going to make any claims about what this all means, you can think about that for yourself. However, (and this is especially meant for all of you who cry out for 'context') think about the situations surrounding these numbers, not just the numbers themselves. Same thing goes for national poll numbers for Presidential elections. They don't really mean anything because, as all of you should remember from 2000, it's not the plurality of people's votes that matters, its the electoral votes that get a President elected.

Here's an endorsement you don't hear much of: Borat likes "Barack Obamas"



Q: Who do you favor for President in the United States?

A: "I cannot believe that it possible a woman can become Premier of US and A - in Kazakhstan, we say that to give a woman power, is like to give a monkey a gun - very dangerous. We do not give monkeys guns any more in Kazakhstan ever since the Astana Zoo massacre of 2003 when Torkin the orang-utan shoot 17 schoolchildrens. I personal would like the basketball player, Barak Obamas to be Premier."

More from the Cluetrain

As an extension from my review of the Cluetrain Manifesto, here are two of the 95 theses presented and my thoughts on them.

#17: Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.

Very true. Most of all, the internet adjusts market segmentation. Instead of appealing to broad audiences (ex: male), internet markets are more specific and concentrated (ex: male, married, 2 children, annual income of $70K, Miami Dolphins fan, etc).

By using the internet, companies can communicate in a one-to-one fashion as opposed to the one-to-many communication that TV, radio and newspapers provide. The internet can provide personalized experiences that other forms of media cannot. And, perhaps most importantly, the internet allows for [easier] feedback, or communication in general, from the consumer to the company.

#74. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

I disagree. Although pop-up ads are annoying and most people just don’t like advertising, I don’t believe that we’re “immune.” First of all, the authors of Cluetrain must have forgotten about product placement as a form of advertising. If people don’t realize something is being advertised, how can they be immune?

Also, I think advertising has been able to evolve and grow because of the internet. It’s able to target those smaller, more concentrated markets because of the internet and there’s more opportunity and need for advertising. Many websites depend on the income from advertising to stay up and running. Going along with this, there has been a movement towards online advertising from newspaper advertising. According to Wachovia Equity Research, online ad spending rose 17.8 percent in 2006 while major marketers continued to reduce spending on newspapers.

Finally, if people are immune to advertising, why is total US advertising spending for 2007 expected to be $152.3 billion? Online advertising spending alone reached nearly $10 million in the first half of 2007. That’s a lot of money to waste on something we’re immune to.

In other news,

A Reuters/Zogby poll regarding approval numbers of President Bush and Congress was released today. The results:

President Bush: 24% approval. Down from 29%.

Congress: 11% approval.

Also, a USA Today article reports that the feelings surrounding the SCHIP program are mixed.
A USA Today/Gallup poll shows these numbers:

52% agree with President Bush. This concerns the allocation of benenfits going towards families that earn less that 200% of the federal poverty level. (or $41,000 for a family of 4)

40% say benefits should go to such families earning up to $62,000, as the bill written by Democrats and some Republicans would allow.

55% are very or somewhat concerned that the program would create an incentive for families to drop private insurance.

The last figure is the most interesting to me. The largest percentage reported in this article regards people being "very or somewhat concerned" about families dropping private insurance. Because the margin of error is +/- 5%, this figure shows that at least 50% fall in this category of concern.

And I thought Americans wanted government-run healthcare and were all completely in favor of the SCHIP. Well, all except for children-hating republicans.


Oh, and is it just me or does a possible Putin/Ahmadinejad alliance frighten anyone else?