Great News

Great news everyone! Polls are showing an extremely close race between Obama and McCain in the general election. I know that wouldn't be as great as, say, polls showing that Obama was way ahead, but let's consider the context.

First, McCain has had the Republican nomination sewn up for months now. He's had no one attacking him and has had a chance to travel all over the country making his case for why he should be president. He's even been taking shots at the Democrats while they were preoccupied with each other.

Second, the Democrats have been pretty preoccupied with each other lately. While McCain was coasting along, Clinton and Obama were in a (dare I say it) bitter primary fight. We keep hearing from Hillary supporters who say that they'll never vote for Obama. Everything from his church to his foreign policy was brought under heavy attack.

Third, most of the polls took place before Obama officially became the presumptive nominee. That's right, when the poll was taken, he was still in that fight and under heavy attack from both Democrats and Republicans.

So here's where it stands. McCain, in the best position he can reasonable expect himself to be in for the remainder of the campaign, polls a little bit worse than Obama, who at the time the polls were taken was not even the nominee and was being hit hard by both sides of the political aisle.

That's great news.

History in the Making

Well, we're witnessing history in the making. A new poll by CNN/Opinion Research Corps. puts President George W. Bush's disapproval rating at nearly 71%. A truly astonishing accomplishment. This is the highest recorded disapproval rating of any president and the first time that a president's disapproval rating cracked the 70% mark. In fact, the previous worst mark was Harry Truman who in 1952 had 67% of people disapprove of his job performance. Lyndon Johnson at the height of the Vietnam War never got to that level. Even Nixon just before his resignation could only muster a 66% percent rate. So this is truly a thing to behold.

I read once a long time ago (meaning not a prayer of finding the link) that poll theorists thought it pretty much impossible to get beyond 2/3 of people disapproving of you. Given that 2/3 is the magic ratio for impeachment, that theory made a certain amount of sense. But George W. Bush is not one to be limited to historical precendent. So he's blasted his way right through that mark.

The other amazing thing (aside from the sheer historic-ness of it all) is that John McCain, who's basically running for a third Bush term - stay in Iraq, make the tax cuts permanent - is virtually tied with the Democratic candidates in head to head polling right now. This tells me two things. First, it means that it's very good to run for president basically unopposed. Second, once the Democrats choose a nominee and really start a campaign, John McCain is in big trouble. So let's get going.