Bush Beats Truman

While George W. Bush hasn’t sunk quite as low in ABC News/Washington Post polling as he did in the latest CNN/Opinion Research survey, surely this can’t be making Republican’ts happy in the run-up to a presidential election:

Eighty-two percent of Americans now say the country’s seriously off on the wrong track, up 10 points in the last year to a point from its record high in polls since 1973. And 31 percent approve of Bush’s job performance overall, while 66 percent disapprove.

ABC goes on to note that “In presidential approval polls by Gallup since 1934, just three presidents have gone lower: Jimmy Carter, who bottomed out at 28 percent approval in July 1979; Richard Nixon, 24 percent in July and August 1974; and Harry Truman, 22 percent in February 1952.”

But it seems that Bush already holds one record:

Bush now has gone 40 months without majority approval, beating Truman’s record (also during economic discontent and an unpopular war) of 38 months from 1949-52.

It seems astonishing to me that John “100 Years War” McCain would be actively running to serve, effectively, a third Bush term, when the guy to whom he’s kissing up is so incredibly unpopular. Then again, a lot of stuff McCain does is bewildering.

READ MORE: “Voters Still More Concerned With Bush Than Jeremiah Wright,” by Steve Benen (The Carpetbagger Report); “U.S. Outlook Is Worst Since ’92, Poll Finds,” by Jon Cohen and Dan Balz (The Washington Post).