A Plague on the Nation

 

Majority in U.S. Say Bush Presidency Is a Failure, Poll Finds
2006-01-26 16:48 (New York)

By Nicholas Johnston
     Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- A majority of Americans said the
presidency of George W. Bush has been a failure and that they
would be more likely to vote for congressional candidates who
oppose him, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.
     Fifty-two percent of adults said Bush's administration since
2001 has been a failure, down from 55 percent in October. Fifty-
eight percent described his second term as a failure. At the same
point in former President Bill Clinton's presidency, 70 percent
of those surveyed by Gallup said they considered it a success and
20 percent a failure.
     In a poll conducted in January of 2002, after Bush was
president for one year, 83 percent of those surveyed said his
presidency was a success.
     In the new poll, conducted Jan. 20-22, fifty-one percent of
those surveyed said they would be more likely to vote for
congressional candidates who do not support Bush's policies.
     The percentage of Americans who called Bush ``honest and
trustworthy'' fell 7 percentage points in the last year to 49
percent, the poll found.
     The new poll also found that 62 percent of Americans said
they are ``dissatisfied'' with ``the way things are going'' in
the U.S., unchanged from a December survey. The percentage of
``dissatisfied'' Americans reached its peak in October of 2005
when 68 percent of those surveyed agreed.
     The survey interviewed 1,006 U.S. adults and has a margin of
error of 4.5 percentage points. For the questions about whether
Bush's presidency is a success, about 500 U.S. adults were
surveyed and the margin for error is plus or minus 5 percentage
points.

--Editor: O'Connell.