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Poll: 75% glad Bush is done

By Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director
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(CNN) -- A new national poll suggests that three out of four Americans
feel President Bush's departure from office is coming not a moment too
soon.

 Seventy-five percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research
Corp. survey released Friday said they're glad Bush is going; 23
percent indicated they'll miss him.

"Earlier this year, Bush scored some of the lowest presidential
approval ratings we've seen in half a century, so it's understandable
that the public is eager for a new president to step in," said Keating
Holland, CNN polling director.

CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider added, "As President Bush
prepares to leave office, the American public has a parting thought:
Good riddance. At least that's the way three-quarters feel."

The portion who say they won't miss Bush is 24 percentage points
higher than the 51 percent who said they wouldn't miss President Bill
Clinton when he left office in January 2001. Forty-five percent of
those questioned at that time said they would miss Clinton.

The poll indicates that Bush compares poorly with his presidential
predecessors, with 28 percent saying that he's the worst ever. Forty
percent rate Bush's presidency as poor, and 31 percent say he's been a
good president.

Only a third of those polled said they want Bush to remain active in
public life after he leaves the White House. That 33 percent figure is
22 points lower than those in 2001 who wanted Bill Clinton to retain a
public role.

 "It's been like a failed marriage," Schneider said.

"Things started out well. When President Bush first took office in
2001, more than 60 percent saw him as strong and decisive. That
impression was confirmed after the September 11th attacks. The public
still saw Bush as strong and decisive when he took office a second
time in 2005.

"But no more. The public has completely lost confidence in this
president," Schneider said.

Bush has dropped on a number of measures, but possibly the biggest is
that only 20 percent say he inspires confidence, Holland said.

"That's an important figure when the country is facing its biggest
economic crisis in a generation," he added.

When running for the White House in the 2000 presidential campaign,
Bush promised to be a uniter and not a divider. But 82 percent of poll
respondents felt that Bush did not unite the country, compared with 17
percent who said he did.

"The vast majority of Americans believe he betrayed his promise to
unite the country," Schneider said. "He took a country that was
divided under President Clinton and he divided it worse."

Only 27 percent of those questioned in the poll approve of the way
Bush is handling his job as president; 72 percent disapprove.

"President Bush's job approval rating has been at or below freezing
since the beginning of the year," Schneider said. "The current 27
percent approval rating is one of the lowest ratings for any
president, ever."

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted December 19-21, with
1,013 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling
error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. 


http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/26/bush.poll/