Bush's approval ratings are terrible, but no one has ever asked me. What's the deal?

Question

In fact, nobody I know has ever been officially polled on whether or not they approve of Bush. Why should I give any creedence to these numbers?

Note: Only objective answers will be considered for the 10 points.

Answer 1

Most polling is done by private companies, many with their own agendas. They ask from people known for their views to get the desired answers.

I've been asked "Do you think the country is headed in the right direction?" How ambiguous. If no, is it Bush's fault. Or, is it the fault of Congress & the Senate. Maybe society at large.

The people reporting on polls cherry pick the results for the point they want to make.

Don't pay much attention to opinion polls. Just my opinion.

Answer 2

Polls are based on a theory that if you ask a sampling of people over a wide area of the country that you will get the results of who believes in what. It is true that these polls are not always honest but some of them are. The major polls, Nielsen, ipos, ect are pretty accurate in predicting how people feel about things. I have been poled a couple of times in my 60 years, once about television that I was watching. I think the other was before a presidential election Carter or Reagan. So if you live long enough I guess you will get ask sooner or later. I try to answer honestly but I am sure that there are those that will try to jimmy the results. But all in all the larger the pole the more accurate it is. If you notice in here that if you ask a question like how do you feel about George Bush you will generally get about the same numbers as his approval rating, however this is not a scientific pole so shouldn't be used as such.

Answer 3

I have been surveyed about four times in my life. A lot of being selected has to do with where you live. Most polling firms use a stratified random sample. This means they seek people from subpopulations that will comprise an accurate picture of the American population. That means that if your area hasn't been asked before, it likely won't be again. When I lived in the suburbs I never got polled. When I moved to the city, I started getting requests. Oddly, when I took a job in rural Nebraska for a while, I was also reached there.

The polls that you should trust will all answer to one of two agencies that verify that methodologies were accurate and fair.

The criticism that I think does hold is that questions can lead to skewed answers. It's been proven that if you ask: "Are you in favor of gay marriage?" Most Americans will say no. If you ask the same people, "Do you believe gay coupls deserve the same rights as straight couples?", the percentage rises by nearly 10 points.

Samples as small as 1200 can present an accurate portrait of the United States. For more information check out some basics on sampling and statistics.

Some of the most trusted polls are those by Gallup, Pew Research Center, the major network polls, and even the Fox Network Poll. If you don't trust an individual poll, one thing to do is to compare the results from different polling places and average them or compare them. Use the second link below to take a look at a great site that collects polling data from all major organizations and makes it easily reviewable.

The only polls that you definitely don't want to trust outright as being anything serious are online volunteer polls. These can easily be skewed by "stuffing" the ballot box with campaigns,etc.

Answer 4

Well, if you live in the Rockies or tornado alley or along the Gulf of Mexico, Bush is still popular and the approval ratings may look rigged.

But they're not!

"W" has made a fundamental mistake -- he's continuing a war we promise not to win instead of wrapping it up. Like Truman in 1952 (Korea was still going on) and Johnson in 1968 (Vietnam was still going on), the American people disapprove of long, drawn-out combat. Americans want their president to win a war, get everyone back home, and go one with civilian prosperity.

"W" hasn't done that -- the casualty numbers are inching up, the cost is in the hundreds of billions, inflation is increasing (making people nervous about money), and there is no end in sight.

So his approval ratings are terrible. People don't like Bush anymore, especially young people (who are particularly infuriated about the use of torture at Abu Ghriab and Guantanamo). There's another approval rating for you -- military enlistment --it is down significantly inspite of cash and education incentives.

Answer 5

There are approximately three hundred million people in this country, polls are conducted by sampling a randomly chosen group of people at a specific number over a vast demographic. This is how these polls can represent a culture. Other polls, such as polls conducted on AOL confirm the findings of the smaller polls the majority of the time by opening voting to all of their members. I have been polled once.

Answer 6

Many organizations "target" certain area or demographic groups to get the results they want. For example, if you were to go to Raliegh and take a poll, there are so many young college students, the results would certainly favor a liberal or democratic view point. Take a poll in a religous, white community in the mid-west, you would most certainly get pro-conservative, republican results. I have never been polled on anything either.

Answer 7

Truman finished world war II and started one in Korea.
a. North Korea never attacked us..
b. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost ...
an average of 18,334 per year.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
a. Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
a. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost ..
an average of 5,800 per year.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
a. Bosnia never attacked us.
b. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter
three times by Sudan and did nothing.
c. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

In the years since terrorists attacked us , President Bush has;
a. liberated two countries,
b. crushed the Taliban,
c. crippled al-Qaida,
d. put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran, and, North
Korea without firing a shot, and
e. captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own.

The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking.

But .....
It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound.....That was a 51-day operation.

We've been looking for evidence for chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida.
Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB!
The Military morale is high!

The biased media hopes we are too ignorant
to realize the facts!

Answer 8

Polls are not as random as we are led to believe. I was never called for a poll until we changed our number 3 years ago. Now I get at least one call a month. I am starting to think that my number is highlighted with a big star next to it!

Answer 9

A reliable survey only requires about 1,000 interviews. With perhaps 200 million people to choose from (presuming they only use eligible voters) that means your odds of getting selected for a survey are 1 in 200,000, or pretty darn small.

Answer 10

pollsters mainly call monday thru friday 9am to 5pm when the only people home are folks who get by on government entitlements.Employed people never get polled but we do vote.