Let’s Help Out John Zogby
John Zogby needs our help! Referring to a ridiculous fantasy poll his organization just ran pitting George W. Bush against all modern Presidents, and for some odd reason, John Kerry (???!!!???), Zogby is puzzled that GWB loses to everyone but Kerry:
In our new poll, every president since Carter defeats Bush. But Kerry still loses to Bush by one point. What am I missing here?
What are you missing, John? We’re here to help.
Here are a few possible answers to your query:
- A. John Kerry is actively disliked by most Americans.
- B. Unlike your other poll participants, George W. Bush did run against John Kerry, and won.
- C. John Kerry is really, really disliked by most Americans, and is pretty annoying, too.
- D. People like George W. Bush more than John Kerry.
- E. John Kerry was never President, and thus shouldn’t be in the poll.
- F. Have I mentioned how unlikeable John Kerry is?
Hope that helps…
UPDATE 09/10/05 12:30 p.m. central: Many thanks to DJ Drummond at PoliPundit for the link…
UPDATE 09/12/05 1:04 p.m. central: Many thanks to the Instapundit for the link!…
Hmm. The Zogby organization must have a lot of money to throw around. How much does it cost to field such a goofy, useless poll? And: who cares, anyway?
What would have been interesting, in a useless and wonky kind of way, would be a poll concerning the presidential losers of the last, say, 30 years. Who would “win” in a contest between Kerry, Gore, (Nader), Dole, GHW Bush, (Ross Perot), Dukakis, Mondale, Carter, Ford & McGovern?
From that list, I’d have to give it to Dole as a guy that, in retrospect, probably would have made a great president. I’m imagining what the world of the late ’90s would have been like had he defeated Clinton in ’96, sparing all of us the ridiculousness of the second Clinton term. And, probably sparing us too from the rise of Sen. Hillary.
If I could make an alternate reality, that probably wouldn’t be such a bad one. The truth, though, is that by and large people probably don’t even remember most (any?) of those guys.
What’s the confusion, here?
Every President looks better from a historical perspective than when they were actually in office.
Did you notice that Jimmy Carter out-polled Bill Clinton? Anyone want to place money on that holding up for another ten years?
Greg, sadly, I think Gore would win your matchup, though my personal choice would be a second term for Daddy Bush…
Mark–Interesting take. I would tend to wonder about the extent to which Gore has disgraced himself and alienated former enthusiasts with his bearded weirdo phase. But you’re probably right.
GHW Bush had alienated, primarily, Republicans, as I remember it, for having raised taxes after making his famous “read my lips…” remark. Perot’s fiscal conservatism really did divide the party. In hindsight, though, most Republicans who voted for Perot probably regret that vote as it turned out to be a vote for Clinton.
Fun stuff to think about.
There’s no denying Perot’s run in ’92 probably cost Bush the Elder the race. But as I recall, voter turnout in ’92 was particularly heavy. (Anyone know for certain?) I always attributed that to Perot being in the race and getting votes from people who wouldn’t have voted for Bush OR Clinton.
fatman, voter turnout was 55.1% in 1992, the second heaviest since 1972 (2004 was number one)…
Thanks, Mark. Both for the answer and the link.
I live to serve…
What a pointless poll. You’re comparing Bush, a president who’s served for almost 6 years, and Kerry, who was just a presidential candidate???
Of course Bush is going to beat out Kerry because he’s actually SERVED as President. I can’t imagine an in-office President losing to a presidential candidate except for maybe Nixon.
I also think it’s semi-pointless to compare him to past presidents. You’re depending on the memory and impressions of people of presidents from many years ago… which I find to be very unreliable.
I think the only gauge which gives us some sort of reliable information is Bush’s approval ratings throughout his presidential years.
Was the Bush/Carter vote restricted to people who actually lived through the Carter presidency? Guess not, otherwise Bush would have won.
Zogby had better start asking questions like “Why did I fail to predict President Bush’s margin of victory last election?”.
I’ve thought for some time now that modern polling is increasingly inaccurate and biased. Pollsters base their results on certain assumptions, such as the percentage of Republicans versus Democrats, that are no longer valid. Zogby’s continued cluelessness about President Bush defeating John Kerry in his latest poll shows that he still has yet to figure this out.
This wouldn’t have been quite as useless if Zogby had also asked about how people would vote for Kerry compared to the previous presidents–or, better, how Hillary would fare against them. (I wonder, would people prefer Bill?) Then we’d have something to compare Bush’s numbers to.
Some small beefs about Zogby.
His approval rating system, rather than approve/disapprove, is excellent,good,fair,poor.
He adds the ‘Fair’ to the poor ratings to obtain approval ratings. I would give Bush, a ‘fair’, but it would mean my dissaproval.
Maybe Zogby needs a new dictionary definition to reconcile the fact that there is no dictionary definition which supports that a ‘fair’ appraisal is a sign of dissaproval.
Next time Zogby does a poll, he should just show pictures and have the ‘polled’ identify the person by name, before they can vote. I feel comfortable in saying-less than 40% of the US population can even identify Carter. Less than 25% can state a factual negative or positive about him.
Kerry’s biggest problem, Bush was younger and better looking…a sad factor, but then the margin was only 3%.
Click on his bio at Huff Post-discusses his accuracy in 2000, but fails to mention that he had a Kerry winning by a the same margin he lost.
One more beef…
I’m on the Zogby poll e-mail list. I get the lamest poll questions ever, but I never saw these questions, and review of my e-mail shows there was none received, coinciding when the poll was actually taken.
Zogby – Tough Questions
It’s also interesting to note that Reagan trumps all of the former Presidents, the protests of the MSM notwithstanding.. But notice that Bush barely losest to Clinton who (according to the adoring press & the Left) is one of the greatest Presiden…
It should also be added that people look on past presidents with some sentimentality. The past always seems a bit more cozy than the present or the future for that matter, in part because it is a known quantity. Bush is attempting a great deal of change in the nation and the world (most of which is for the good I think). This is seldom appreciated in its time.
Terry, exactly…given all of the large-scale events of the Bush presidency, it’s small wonder his approval ratings are so low…he’s leading, not following polls…
“Zogby Poll? No One Asked Me!”
I would not be surprised to find, when an accurate unbiased history is written about these times, that Presidend George W. Bush will be considered one of the best presidents. You have to consider all that he has had to deal with. I believe that he is a very good leader! He knows what he has to do and he does it!
The mainstream ellite media is so very much baised against Bush and trying to affect public opinion against him. For some people (probably the vast majority) the only thing they know about George W. Bush is what they see or hear in the mainstream media.
I don’t put much credence in any poll. Seems to me more often than not, the polls are wrong! Just look at the last election: if the polls were right, John Kerry would be President now. I think the questions in polls are designed to get the results that the poll takers want to see, not necessarilly the truth.
But, that is just my humble opinion.
What’s funny is that several of the mentally challenged commenters at the Huff-Po suggest that the result of Zogby’s pointless poll is due to election fraud.
Um, no.
So the field is Carter, Reagan, DaddyBush, Clinton and W. Oh, and Kerry. And all beat Bush but Kerry. And the moral of the story is… what? As observed above, I wonder if there is no moral to the Reagan performance? The medioids so sure of their intellectual and moral superiority had better wake up. You are trying the same crap on W you did on Reagan. The result will be similar and proportional. In ten or twelve years where will Ws numbers be? I predict overall approval and trustworthiness will be double and triple that accorded to the “media” if such a thing exists at that time. Clinton and Carter will be difficult Jeopardy answers. The Reagan and W questions will be the one and two hundreds.
Reagan? Sure. If only that was an option.
Bush I? He got a bad deal, being blamed for the taxes and dealing with Perot. Perhaps they should have thrown Perot in the mix between Father and son and see what happens.
Clinton? Perhaps after 5 years of constent Clinton as “The Bestest President Ever!!’ is starting to pay off.
Kerry? Loosing? Again? Sounds about right.
Carter? That’s just nuts. I would guess most people voted for kindly house building Carter, rather than horrible, worse-president-than-my-cat-would-have-been president.
Peter:
Of course Bush is going to beat out Kerry because he’s actually SERVED as President. I can’t imagine an in-office President losing to a presidential candidate except for maybe Nixon.
This is an odd statement. By this theory, every president in history should have served two terms. That Kerry still came out second-best after the hurricane might say more about Kerry than Bush
Zogby’s doing himself no favors. I for one have not forgotten his ridiculously off-base exit polling data last year, which was leaked before polls closed and undoubtedly depressed Bush turnout in Ohio and other key states – though not enough to matter. Now it turns out he’s running weird and irrelevant “what if?” polls when Bush is facing the most criticism he’s ever come under, as part of a massive, disingenuous Democrat smear campaign. What could be Zogby’s purpose other than to do a release saying “Kerry would beat Bush if election held today”? And then we’d be treated to the spectacle of muttonhead Brian Williams and his fellow newsreaders parroting it right back – “A new poll out says that if the 2004 election were held today [dramatic pause] John Kerry [half pause] would be the winner.”
And then – incredibly – Zogby’s dumb enough to complain publicly when he didn’t get the result he was hoping for.
If Zogby had screwed over the Democrats with his incompetent exit polling instead of the Republicans, he’d have the wingnut left protesting every company that gave him a dime and publishing books and independent films featuring ven diagrams connecting him to Halliburton and the Bilderbergers and Prescott Bush and Leo Strauss. But he screwed over Republicans, and so that means he’ll probably be given another chance in 2008 to undermine the electoral integrity of the United States.
Personally, I think John Zogby is a fictional character created by Karl Rove…bwaaaaahaaaahaaaaa!
More Results of Social Promotion
This John Zogby post on the Huff-Po is getting some play around the blogosphere. Zogby writes: In our new poll, every president since Carter defeats Bush. But Kerry still loses to Bush by one point. What am I missing here?
There’s something not right about the trackback function on this site. I can’t get it to work, at all.
SWLiP, your trackback is there…did you get an error message or something?…have a great one…
Note that not only did the much ballyhoo’d Clinton barely beat Pres. Bush (the target of the MSM lynch mob) and not only did he do much worse than Pres. Reagan (a previous target), he couldn’t even top the MSM’s Satan-figure, Richard Nixon.
JWE, excellent point…