Bill Schneider: Schwarzenegger, stock market could be helping Bush
 |
CNN's Bill Schneider
Story Tools
VIDEO
|
CNN's Bruce Morton on the political record of Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
CNN's Peter Viles on proposed legislation to allow thousands of illegal aliens to stay in the U.S.
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux on Bush amid criticism of postwar Iraq policy.
|
|
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday shows President Bush's approval rating moved back up, following a dip in September. CNN anchor Daryn Kagan talked with CNN's senior political analyst Bill Schneider about what these latest poll numbers mean.
KAGAN: Let's go right to the numbers. The first question that's in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, asking these people, do you approve of President Bush's handling of job as president.
SCHNEIDER: What you can see here, Daryn, in the middle of September, the president's job approval rating had dipped to 50 percent. Now that's the danger point, Democrats were waiting breathlessly for that number to dip below 50 percent, because then he would be in trouble for re-election.
But what happened now, among all Americans, his approval has jumped to 56 percent, reversing trend, just in the nick of time.
And why did that happen? Well, take a look at the high-income people on right. The big jump in the president's job ratings was among the high-income people, people earning over $75,000 a year, who went from 45 percent approval in mid-September to 64 percent, a 19 percent bounce.
Why did it go up so much among wealthier Americans? Could be because they keep an eye on the stock market. And the stock market is doing very well this year. It recovered most of its losses since 2001, and it ended just this week at an all-time high for the year. So people who keep an eye on the stock market, wealthier Americans, are pretty happy.
KAGAN: And what about what kind of impact Arnold Schwarzenegger's run in California has had on President Bush?
SCHNEIDER: Well, that's interesting, [because] aside from high income people, the other group where we noticed the big jump in President Bush's job rating were among people in the West.
Now for the past few weeks, they have been absolutely absorbed by the Arnold Schwarzenegger story. He's taken all the attention. There hasn't been a lot of attention to President Bush, his problems, the economy, Iraq; that's been an inside-the-paper story. Arnold has been all over the front pages. So there could be what I call the Terminator effect, namely he's absorbed so much attention, voters haven't been paying a lot of attention to President Bush, and one result might be they are not as angry at Bush as they were a few weeks ago.
KAGAN: It will be interesting ... when President Bush is in California and the two do appear together. Let's talk economy now, people were asked, 'How do you think the economy is doing?' How did they respond to that?
SCHNEIDER: Well, optimistically, in a single word. Only 44 percent think the economy is doing well right now, but ... 64 percent say they think things will be good in the country a year from now. And that optimism is concentrated, as you might guess, among wealthier people, who have a very rosy outlook for the economy.
When the stock market rises, it produces what's called the wealth effect. It doesn't necessarily put money in people's pockets immediately, but they feel better off, they feel more optimistic and that seems to be helping President Bush.
