Bush by the (Poll) Numbers: How does he stand, and what's he doing?

It's an article of faith inside the White House these days that George W. Bush will receive a big boost in political capital in the next few weeks, when millions of tax rebate checks begin arriving in mailboxes across the country. "When people start realizing they have an extra $300 or $600 as a down payment on real tax relief, that's when he starts getting the credit," says one White House aide. Another predicts: "People will open the mail and say, 'Holy cow, he really did do something.'"

Never mind that the rebates weren't the president's idea; that, in fact, the White House initially pooh-poohed them as a Democratic gimmick. Bush's staffers are putting so much faith in the check-in-the- mail scenario because so far the president has received little political benefit from fulfilling his number-one campaign promise- coming through with a tax cut that was bigger than even some supporters thought possible, more quickly than many thought possible. If the rebate checks do the trick, great.

But for now at least, Bush's job-approval ratings are wandering listlessly around 50 percent (although one poll showed a slight improvement at the time of writing). The numbers have led some Republicans to worry; the president hasn't moved much beyond the 48 percent he won last November. "There's good reason to worry," says pollster John Zogby, who keeps a regular eye on Bush's fortunes. "We're in the twilight zone between the honeymoon and the election of 2002, and he's not in the position he should be."

Indeed, a look at the unpublished demographic breakdown of a recent Zogby poll shows Bush having trouble earning a strong majority of support from several important electoral groups. With independent voters, he's at 48 percent approval. With Catholics, he's at 51 percent. And-woefully for this president-with married voters, he's at about 55 percent. "The 55 signifies to me just how little he's grown," says Zogby. "This is a group he did well with during the election and one he's supposed to be representing. This is the kind of group that will help him build a majority, and he's nowhere with them." On top of that, Bush's job disapproval rating is in the mid 30s, about ten points higher than when he began his presidency.

There's not much argument about what's responsible for the drop: energy, environment, and economy. Even some Bush aides concede that the president's energy campaign, while based on some good ideas, was a flop with the public. First the White House, playing off power woes in California, pushed the idea that the country was in crisis-"the most serious energy shortage since the oil embargoes of the 1970s," according to the vice president's energy report. Then, before any of the Bush policies could be enacted, things started to get better. The price of gasoline went down, along with the price of natural gas and the price of electricity in California. Not much of a crisis-but a real waste of political credibility.

Combine that with the Democrats' high-profile effectiveness in using the environmental issue, from arsenic to offshore drilling, against the White House; opponents have often left Bush looking defensive. And finally, there's the public's up-and-down concern about the economy. Zogby found that just 33 percent of respondents who are pessimistic about their personal finances gave Bush a high job-approval rating. (So far, however, many more people remain optimistic about their personal finances; Bush is at 55 with them.)

No one would argue that the numbers are good news for Bush. But the president's less poll-obsessed allies respond this way: The next presidential election is more than three years away, and nobody knows what will happen between now and then. So why worry about polls?

Answer: Because polls do more than just predict (sometimes badly) the results of elections. The president's job-approval ratings have a here- and-now effect on his ability to push his agenda through Congress and in the national media. To Democrats on Capitol Hill, Bush's anemic polls mean one thing: opportunity. "The numbers?" says one Democratic strategist. "They tell Tom Daschle to push full steam ahead on the Patients' Bill of Rights and make Bush veto it. They tell Dick Gephardt to push full steam ahead on a discharge petition and a vote on campaign-finance reform and make the president veto it. They tell Democrats to push full steam ahead on the environment."

They've certainly gotten the message. But Bush's ratings affect more than just Democrats. "It's hard to imagine [the Democrats] being more aggressive-they've been so aggressive from the outset," says Ed Gillespie, a Republican consultant with close White House ties. "But [the poll numbers] do have an effect on some of our shakier Republicans in hanging in against the Democrats." And the numbers mean that George W. Bush has a little less power to stiffen Republican spines.

In addition, Bush's poll standing is forcing him to pay more attention to salesmanship. "I think it requires a greater emphasis on message and a much more hands-on approach," says Gillespie, citing Bush's July 11 morale-building trip to Capitol Hill as Exhibit A of a new White House determination to sell its product. "This administration is not poll- driven, but that's not to say they're not conscious of polls. . . . When you're promoting your policies, you have to be conscious of where the polls are."

Another example of White House image-awareness came the day after Bush's pep talk in the House, when he staged a Rose Garden rollout of his Medicare proposals. He made his speech in front of a big mockup of the new prescription-drug discount card the administration will make available to millions of seniors. Daschle was quick to call it a gimmick, which probably meant that he feared it might have some public appeal. And the very fact that Bush showcased the card at the same event at which he was presenting serious ideas for Medicare reform indicates the premium the White House is now putting on salesmanship. (Nevertheless, bad timing continued to dog the president: The Medicare ceremony was overshadowed by the climactic House battle over campaign- finance reform happening the same day-not as bad as the signing of the tax-cut bill being swamped by news of Sen. Jim Jeffords's switch to the Democratic party, but bad enough.)

So the White House political team is keeping a close watch on the numbers. And should they ever become too worried, they can get the relax-and-take-a-deep-breath perspective from Matthew Dowd, Bush's pollster during the campaign and now director of polling at the Republican National Committee. "The president's numbers are actually within the range of where they are supposed to be, once you acknowledge that the electorate has been polarized for the last ten or twelve years," Dowd says. "We're not in an era where a president can get 70 percent job-approval ratings, absent a major crisis." (Or a sex scandal, although that probably wouldn't work for Bush.)

Dowd explains that about 40 percent of the electorate is Democratic and gives Bush a high job-disapproval rating. Another 40 percent is Republican and gives him a high approval rating. That leaves 20 percent in the middle, and so far Bush is getting a positive rating from more than half of them. "Fifty-two or 53 percent is basically his equilibrium point," Dowd says. "If we had these numbers in October 2004, I'd be ecstatic."

Dowd pours out plenty of factlets to support his point. Bill Clinton had a 54 percent job-approval rating when he beat Bob Dole by nearly nine points. Clinton didn't get a 60 percent job-approval rating until several years into his presidency (Bush got one in February, March, and April, according to the Gallup Poll). And no president with a job- approval rating above 47 percent has lost a race for reelection.

These are good things to remember, although it's not terribly hard to imagine Bush occasionally slipping below 47 percent, even with the new emphasis on selling his programs. In the meantime, the only thing the president can be absolutely certain of is that Daschle and the Democrats will work relentlessly to push his polls as low as possible- even after those rebate checks arrive in the mail.