vision2020
Re: Hail to the Chief
Either way the final tally went, we were doomed
to have an illegitimate president. Now we have
an illegitimate Senate as well.
--- Steve Cooke <scooke@uidaho.edu> wrote:
> Dear Visionaries,
> Here is a follow-up to the Nov./Dec. Presidential
> election.
> Steve Cooke
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: America's Future
> [mailto:manager@ourfuture.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 11:46 AM
> Subject: Cobble: Six Months Since the Coup, and Bush
> is Still Illegitimate
>
>
> America's Future | www.ourfuture.org
>
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> PROGRESSIVE MAJORITY NETWORK
>
>
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> Below you will find a short piece by Steve Cobble,
> Director of the Campaign
> for a Progressive Future. Cobble looks at a series
> of recent, underreported
> polls that show Bush is still not regarded as a
> legitimate president by the
> American public. "Americans were mad at the way
> Bush was installed by the
> Scalia 5 last December; and they're still mad 6
> months later" writes Cobble.
>
>
>
>
> SIX MONTHS SINCE THE COUP, AND BUSH IS STILL
> ILLEGITIMATE
> By Steve Cobble
>
>
>
> The media have rightly made a big deal this week out
> of the large protests
> that have greeted George W. Bush in Spain and
> Sweden. What goes largely
> unreported, however, are the protests back home,
> beginning with the massive
> demonstrations on Inauguration Day, and continuing
> ever since. Activists
> are still angry that the loser of the popular vote
> was fraudulently
> installed in office.
>
> Also largely unreported are the polling results that
> show that Bush is still
> not regarded as a legitimate president. It is now
> six months since the
> Scalia 5's December 12th judicial coup, and
> Americans are still not fooled.
> Despite the best efforts of the national media to
> ignore and obscure the
> data; despite the prodigious propaganda spewing
> forth from Fox, Reilly,
> Limbaugh, even Matthews (Tip O'Neill must be
> squirming!); and despite the
> focus on nicknames, tee-ball, and the Shrub as just
> another humble,
> compassionate, back-slapping, bipartisan Joe
> ex-six-pack, the truth is that
> the American people have never fully embraced either
> the President-Select or
> his installation in office by hook or by crook.
>
> #1: The newest Zogby Poll reports that only 29% of
> the voters believe that
> Bush deserves re-election.
>
> This is a remarkably pathetic number. This number
> is called the "re-elect,"
> and is one of the important baseline figures that
> political operatives keep
> track of. Anything below 50% is regarded as a major
> danger sign; below 40%
> is awful; and below 30% is usually a sign that a
> candidate's advisers better
> update their resumes.
>
> The Zogby Poll, one of the few polls to correctly
> call Bush's popular vote
> loss, surveyed 1,007 likely voters between 6/8-11,
> with a margin of error
> (MOE) of 3.2%.
>
> Only 29% said Bush deserved re-election (including a
> mere 12% of Democrats,
> 23% of Independents, 17% of moderates, 12% of
> African Americans, 25% of
> Latinos, and 24% of women).
>
> 38% of likely voters said they would choose someone
> else! This includes 61%
> of Democrats, 39% of Independents, 44% of moderates,
> even 19% of
> conservatives, 41% of women, 38% of Latinos, and 59%
> of African Americans.
>
> 33% of Americans were not sure.
>
> #2: The Republicans continue to argue that Paul
> Wellstone, Minnesota's
> progressive Senator, is very vulnerable. And what
> is Senator Wellstone's
> re-elect number? 46%, according to a Mason/Dixon
> poll from February.
>
> Wellstone, 46% re-elect. Bush, 29% re-elect. You
> make the call.
>
> #3: A Yankelovich Partners poll for CNN/Time three
> weeks ago asked the same
> kind of question slightly differently. On 5/23-24,
> Yankelovich asked 1,031
> adults (3.1% MOE): "If George W. Bush runs for
> re-election, how likely are
> you to vote for him: very likely, somewhat likely,
> somewhat unlikely, or
> very unlikely?"
>
> The result-half said unlikely, and over 4/5 of those
> were very unlikely!
>
> [Very unlikely-42%; somewhat unlikely-8% (for a
> total of 50%!); somewhat
> likely-17%; very likely-26% (only 43%).]
>
> #4: On 5/10, CNN.com had the following
> headline-"Honeymoon's over: Bush's
> approval rating drops."
>
> A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll discovered that "Bush's
> job approval stands at
> 53%, compared to 62% last month...Bush's decline was
> high among
> independents, suburbanites, and parents-all groups
> that have grown
> significantly more worried about energy...and his
> approval rating suffered
> most among 18-to-29-year-olds, who are notably less
> concerned about energy."
>
> #5: The truth is, a remarkably large segment of
> the American public has
> never been impressed with the President-Select. In
> April, the Washington
> Post and ABC published its "100 days" poll of 1,350
> adults (MOE 3%), which
> asked the question: "Do you consider Bush to have
> been legitimately elected
> as president, or not?" 36% said no.
>
> Thus, months after Bush was installed in office by
> Scalia and his Court
> cronies, more than one-third of the public still
> regarded him as
> illegitimate!
>
> [There is an interesting aspect to this legitimacy
> question. Prior to the
> judicial coup last December 12th, the question was
> posed: "If this ends
> with Bush winning the presidency, will you consider
> him to have been
> legitimately elected as president, or not?" As late
> as December 10th, two
> days before the Court coup, only 27% chose "no" as
> their answer; this figure
> immediately shot up to 42% in the wake of the Scalia
> 5's decision,
> demonstrating the public's astute conclusion that
> the Court's decision was
> bogus. And 4 months later, despite all the
> propaganda and propping up that
> the media conservatives have engaged in, that number
> was still up at 36%.]
>
> The "100 Days" poll also showed that 60% of the
> public believed that Bush
> does not have a mandate to carry out his agenda, so
> he should compromise
> with the Democrats (and this was taken a month
> before Jim Jeffords left the
> GOP!). In addition, the poll showed major danger
> signs for the
> President-Select-these are also known as "windows of
> opportunity" for
> progressives:
>
> *60% believed Bush cares more about protecting the
> interests of large
> business corporations, over ordinary working people
> (only 28%).
>
=== message truncated ===
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