What is starting to be more interesting to me is the act of stepping back and examining this administration from a statistical and historical perspective. For instance, most historians choose as the worst six Presidents, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren G. Harding, William Henry Harrison and Ulysses S. Grant in that order. If Bush continues on his present path, where would he fit in that hierarchy if anywhere? My opinion is that he would displace Ulysses S. Grant as sixth worst. He is almost automatically ahead of the first five because none of them were able to win re-election, but Grant WAS a two term President. In fact, since the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution limiting Presidents to two terms was not ratified until 1951, Grant's name was bandied about again for the Republican nomination several years after his exit from the Presidency. Reading up again on Grant, his Presidency and Bush's seem to have a lot in common. Grant was a Republican, his tenure was marked by vicious partisanship, and a nation polarized along political lines. Several members of his administration were implicated in corruption and graft scandals. His administration passed much legislation that many saw as pandering to commercial and industrial interests. Where Grant clearly bests Bush, however, is that Grant was viewed as scoring several diplomatic successes where Bush has turned most of the world's opinion against us. Grant was viewed as such a great diplomat outside of the US that the first two years of his retirement was spent touring the world to universal accolades. Somehow, I think that most of Bush's post President Years will be spent either in Crawford, Texas, if he is lucky, or in Leavenworth, Kansas. What might be curious is for people to ponder what would have to happen to worsen Bush's performance enough to overcome any of the five who did not win re-election. If the continuing investigation into Leak-Gate culminates with either Rove or Cheney or perhaps even Bush indicted and/or impeached and removed, we might have to consider Bush for one of the worst five spots.
The bad showing of this administration is also useful for plotting the political strength of the parties. We can see from recent polling the percentage range of the Republican Base. My favorite polling website is http://pollingreport.com and Bush's current polling numbers can be seen at http://www.pollingreport.com/bushjob.htm . From these results, and knowing that anyone with even a slightly open mind feels that this administration is a failure (i.e. leaving only Republican stalwarts) we can see that the Republican base is somewhere between 33% and 39% of the population. Let us pick the midpoint and set the Republican base at 36%. Several polls show that on average, the Democratic Base is 5% higher than the Republican Base. So, the Democratic base is 41%. No party affiliations, moderates and third parties of various stripes are then 23%. This information has all sorts of applications for the upcoming 2006 elections and other uses. If I were Howard Dean, I would certainly have to believe that the only thing Democrats have to fear at this point in history is fear itself. We should put forth a bold and detailed plan for this country's future. The only thing people seem to say about Democrats these days that gives them any potential reluctance to vote for us is the alleged absence of a plan on the major issues. We ought to make it clear that we have a plan and that plan is considerably better than the disaster the GOP have foisted upon us.
So, to sum up, Bush sucks, we all know it and I'm only going to write on new stuff about him that comes up. GOP Base=36%, Democratic Base=41%, Bush fifth on worst all time Presidents list surpassing Ulysses S Grant and Bush is working on passing the last five, and Howard Dean, please, please, please put out a detailed plan!
