CNN: Obama, Bush have (near) identical favorability ratings

[Miles]

Report.

[memphis]

The difference is that Obama is the current prez. All the former ones get the rosy afterglow. At this point in his term, W was in the 30s.

[H. Ross Peron]

More people have never heard of Bill then Hillary?

[CatoMinor]

The fact that either of them have favorability ratings north of the 30's isn't a good sign for Democracy.  

[Simfan34]

BRING BUBBA BACK

[IceSpear]

It's a lot easier to see Bush favorably when he's painting pictures of dogs instead of destroying the country.

[Aliens]

5% of people have NO idea who Laura Bush is.  No clue, whatsoever.

[Joe Republic]

Barbara Bush having the highest favorability of the whole bunch is enough to toss this entire poll in the garbage.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

I'm not sure why Barbara Bush is so popular. Bush joked about it in both his 1992 SOTU and the town hall debate later that year.

[badgate]

It's her hair.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It's her hair.

Yup.  Barbara Bush was already our First Grandmother even before Dubya was President.  Given how close Florida was in 2000, I think it is no stretch to say that if not for her, Gore would have been the one to go live in the White House and not her grandson.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Obama being -4 at this point in his term really isn't too bad. Most Presidents are just absolutely stinking up the polls 5 or 6 years in.

[memphis]

It's her hair.

Yup.  Barbara Bush was already our First Grandmother even before Dubya was President.  Given how close Florida was in 2000, I think it is no stretch to say that if not for her, Gore would have been the one to go live in the White House and not her grandson.

I would credit a different member of the Bush family for those 25 critical electoral votes. One who had a more direct influence on the state.

[angus]

Chelsea?  Was that really necessary?


As for Obama, we should recall Mitt Romney's enlightened statement of 17 September 2012:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.


In January of 2013 Romney clarified this in an interview with Dan Balz:

As I understood it, and as they described it to me, not having heard it, it was saying, 'Look, the Democrats have 47 percent, we've got 45 percent, my job is to get the people in the middle, and I've got to get the people in the middle.

I guess Bush was a little better at winning over the middle than Romney, but he didn't seem to hold on to much of it after his presidency.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Chelsea?  Was that really necessary?

Why not? After all, she's gonna be president too one day.

[angus]

I'd forgotten how old she was.  I see her as a little girl in my mind, but she will be qualified by next year, I suppose.  I seriously doubt she would want any part of the business, however.  My guess is that she's praying for the day her parents finally get out of that game.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Bush is a chill bro that paints puppies.

[Mr. Morden]

I'd forgotten how old she was.  I see her as a little girl in my mind, but she will be qualified by next year, I suppose.  I seriously doubt she would want any part of the business, however.  My guess is that she's praying for the day her parents finally get out of that game.

Actually, she's jointly running the Clinton foundation with her parents:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=177735.0

is apparently a top advisor to her mother, and says she might run for office herself some day:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/04/08/chelsea-clinton-open-to-running-for-political-office/

[angus]

Intriguing.  I always knew she was a think-tank sort of person, so the foundation employment isn't surprising.  However, her statement that she might enjoy the sort of existence that politicians have, especially from someone who knows so intimately the sacrifices that it entails, is a bit surprising.  Maybe she's just playing it up.  She is very smart, after all.  Anyway, she is smart enough to know that the press wants some gossip.  (The article you post gives the sort of typically vague statement people who want to sell ideas and books generally make when asked whether they want to run for office.)  Or maybe it is possible that she really is as narcissistic as her parents, and is quite serious about considering political office.