Bush has fallen below 40% in the latest ARG poll, tumbling all the way down to the mid-30's. As Garance says, that likely means we've reached a sort of tipping point, with most everyone but hard Republicans fed up and finished with our hapless chief executive. Was it Sheehan? Was it Iraq? My guess, actually, is that it's his vacation. If the guy can't be bothered to remain at work while his various initiatives explode around us, he doesn't deserve our support. For comparison, it's interesting to note that Clinton's second-term approval ratings never dropped below 40%. Not once.
None of this, of course, matters very much electorally. George W. Bush will not be running for President in 2008, and those who fight to succeed him will, to varying degrees, attempt to distance themselves from his legacy in order to carve out an independent image. What does matter is that Bush's plummeting approval ratings will force his successors to flee very far indeed, which may either leave to a true conservative insurgency (Calling Newt Gingrich) or a swing towards moderate Republicanism. Moreover, the worse George polls, the lamer he gets, and the less likely his legislative initiatives become. That's an important shift because, with everything on the foreign front failing, expect tax reform to get rolled out sooner or later.
