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Bush Taking Long View on Sliding Poll Numbers
Sun Apr 10, 2005 11:29 AM ET
By Steve Holland

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Seated at the head of a conference table aboard Air Force One, talking at length with reporters, President Bush showed little sign of worry about a recent slide in public opinion polls.

"You can find them going up and you can find them going down," Bush said of the surveys. "You can pretty much find out what you want in polls, is my point."

Poll numbers in the past several days point, however, to a basic reality for the president: the Social Security debate, high gasoline prices and negative fallout from the Terri Schiavo case have combined to hurt him.

Less than three months after starting his second term, Bush's job approval rating has slipped to 48 percent, according to a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll. An average of polls by realclearpolitics.com said 53 percent of Americans believed the country was on the wrong track.

On Bush's signature issue, changing Social Security to let younger workers set up private retirement accounts, the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll said 55 percent thought it was a bad idea, compared with 35 percent who liked it.

But Bush's concerted effort to convince people of the need to change the system could be having some impact. The same survey found 65 percent of Americans were open to changing their minds and an overwhelming majority agreed with Bush the retirement system needed fixing.

Some White House and Republican officials believe the fact Bush has succeeded in convincing people Social Security is a problem has contributed to his drop in the polls because they now want a solution and instead see Washington quarreling about what to do.

Bush, in the session with reporters on the presidential plane returning from Pope John Paul II's funeral in Rome on Friday, said some members of the U.S. Congress were sorry he brought up the country's largest entitlement program and a sacred cow of U.S. politics.

"There are a lot of people who would rather not talk about this issue," said Bush, who added, "Some of them are worried about elections."

HITTING A ROUGH PATCH

Democrats attribute Bush's problem to a nearly exclusive focus on overhauling Social Security in a way that would cut benefits. They say he has let other problems fester.

"Pushing that kind of message when you have economic instability driven in part by high energy prices, I think it is making a lot of people wary of what he is doing and what the administration's priorities are," said Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Republicans admit Bush has hit a rough patch and say higher gasoline prices, a rash of teen shootings and the Schiavo case have contributed to a sour mood. Polls show most Americans opposed congressional intervention in the dispute over whether to restore the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube. Bush came back from Texas to sign the legislation.

"I think what we are experiencing right now is some brief turbulence in his poll numbers and they will start to climb over time," said a senior Republican congressional aide in the U.S. House of Representatives.

It will be helpful, he said, when the public perceives progress on the Social Security debate and on taking action against gasoline prices by approval of energy legislation that has languished for years.

Bush has been closely monitoring the energy issue, aides say, and is expected to discuss high prices when he meets this month with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah at his Crawford ranch.

Aboard Air Force One, Bush said energy legislation would only be part of a solution. "Eventually what we're going to have to do is change our habits, change the type of automobiles we drive," he said. (Additional reporting by Adam Entous)