Uneasy Rhetoric

Two Republican politicians are getting plenty of press about poll numbers. Both Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s movie star Governor, and George W. Bush, the United States’ nucular President, are sinking in the polls. In fact, each day they seem to find new lows. If they aren’t careful, their approval ratings may fall lower that their respective legislative counterparts.

But, for one of these politicians, the polls don’t really matter. Can you guess which one? I’ll give you a hint: he was one governor who didn’t star in Predator.

That’s right. Unlike Schwarzenegger, the President can weather a dip in the polls because, unlike Schwarzenegger, the President can’t run again. Low polling numbers will reflect badly in only a minor way, if at all, on whomever the Republicans choose for their nominee. Americans do not have strong party identification. Americans identify far more with the individual than with the party. Sure, there are party faithful, but they aren’t the part of the electorate that matters, and I doubt that, even taken together, Democrat and Republican party faithful make up a majority of electors. In the end, the Republican nominee will be able to either distance himself from or embrace the current president, depending on how the President is doing in the polls somewhere down the road.

What I really want to know is whether the President’s lackluster performance will also translate into a rejection of whatever it was that got him elected in the first place (I remain unconvinced that it was “values,” whatever those are), and whether that rejection will allow the Democrats to make inroads into Bush’s voters.

Frankly, by saying empty words like “I take full responsibility,” Bush is sheltering his Republican colleagues, rhetorically, from whatever fallout he may cause due to his administration’s slow and ponderous response to Katrina. Whatever reflects badly on him may not also reflect badly on his political party.

While it may make Democrats feel better to see Bush’s poll number sinking, those poll numbers won’t amount to a hill of beans when election day comes, three years hence, even if the poll numbers stay low. Catharsis is good for the soul, but does nothing to sway voters.

Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, may be in trouble.