New Poll Is Good News For President Bush

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll provides better news for President Bush.

According to the New York Times article about the poll:

Already, most voters think Mr. Kerry is a politician who says what people want to hear, the poll found, rather than what he believes — the line of attack Mr. Bush has used against him in speeches.

At the same time, there is sweeping concern among Americans about the president's economic policies, including his ability to create jobs and the effectiveness of his tax cuts, according to the poll.

[. . .]

Perhaps most significant for Mr. Bush, the number of Americans who think that the nation is heading in the wrong direction is now 54 percent, as high as it has been in his presidency.

[. . .]

The Times/CBS News poll offered the latest evidence that the race for president was as tight as has long been predicted. Even after two weeks in which Mr. Bush has run televised advertisements promoting himself and attacking Mr. Kerry, and in which Mr. Kerry has enjoyed the glow of favorable coverage that greeted his near-sweep of Democratic primaries, the two men are effectively tied, with 46 percent of voters saying they supported Mr. Bush and 43 percent backing Mr. Kerry.

The candidacy of Ralph Nader looms as a potentially lethal threat to Democratic hopes of regaining the White House: With Mr. Nader in the race, Mr. Bush leads Mr. Kerry by 46 percent to 38 percent, with Mr. Nader drawing 7 percent of the votes. In a sign of the polarized electorate Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry are facing, three-quarters of supporters of each candidate asserted they would not change their mind before the election.

The nationwide telephone poll of 1,206 adults, including 984 registered voters, was taken from last Wednesday through Sunday. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The Times' article correctly states that the 46% Bush 43% Kerry spread is within the poll's margin of error. However the Times doesn't point out that this is a reversal of the polls February results which found Kerry ahead 47% - 46%.

The poll can be accessed by following this link and in the Campaign 2004 box click on the "Interactive Feature: Complete Results: New York Times/CBS Poll" link.

Comments

[Cranial]

I'm really starting to believe the Bush team needs to look elswhere for campaign advisors.

On various subjects his mesage is just not getting out.

Example on "outsourcing" there are so many studies and examples of this being a not only normal but a benefit to America but almost nothing comes out of the Bush camp to counter the Kerry "3 mil jobs lost crap."

At best it is an ambiguous subject with valid points on both sides.