Below The Beltway

It shouldn’t be any surprise that George W. Bush has hit the lowest approval ratings of his Presidency:

PRINCETON, NJ — According to a Sept. 26-27 USA Today/Gallup poll, just 27% of Americans approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president, the lowest rating of his presidency.

The new personal low rating for Bush comes amid the financial crisis that has rocked Wall Street in recent weeks. Bush’s approval rating has declined from 31% in the previous Gallup Poll, conducted before the crisis intensified with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the near-collapse of Merrill Lynch, and the federal government bailout of AIG. It is down 6 points from 33% just after the Republican National Convention early this month. Bush’s previous low had been 28%, measured at several points earlier this year. (The most recent poll was conducted before the House of Representatives voted down a bill to address the problems on Monday.)

The timing of the decline strongly suggests that it is because of the financial crisis, and the government’s largely unpopular response to it. In a separate question in the Sept. 26-27 poll, only 28% of Americans approved and 68% disapproved of Bush’s response to the financial crisis — the worst of six government leaders tested in the poll (although no leader received a majority positive response). While most Americans agreed that some type of government action is necessary to address the crisis, last week only a small minority seemed to favor passing a bill similar to the Bush administration’s original proposal.

Republicans are mostly responsible for the further erosion in Bush’s job rating. Sixty-four percent of Republicans approve of Bush, down from 71% in the prior poll. Independents’ and Democrats’ ratings are essentially the same as two weeks ago.

Here’s the chart of Bush’s approval rating, as measured by Gallup since 2001:

And you’ll notice interesting parallels between that, and this chart of the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 over the same period:

Each of the market averages is, you’ll notice, in negative territory from where it started when Bush took office.

For good measure, here’s what’s happened to the value of the dollars, as measured against the Euro, over the same period:

No wonder he’s so unliked, huh ?