Ronald Reagan
The death of former President Ronald Reagan on Saturday has shifted attention away from the 2004 presidential election, if only for a few days. The activities associated with Reagan's funeral in Washington (followed by his burial in California) will dominate news coverage for most of the coming week. Democratic candidate John Kerry has already announced that he will suspend overt campaign activities this week out of respect for the former president.
Reagan is an example of a president who had become increasingly revered in the years after he left the White House. Reagan's job approval ratings while he was in office were not spectacular by any means. His administration was plagued by a bad economy in its early years, and in its final years by the Iran-Contra affair. Fortunately for Reagan, his popularity began to move upward in 1984 -- perfect timing for his highly successful re-election bid, in which Reagan beat Walter Mondale by a 59% to 41% margin.
Some of the current praise being heaped on Reagan results from his contribution to restoring the country's faith after the various problems of the 1970s, including the tail end of the Vietnam War, Watergate, inflation, two gas crises, and the Iranian hostage situation. Clearly that's true, at least to a certain degree. Reagan did indeed have higher job approval ratings than his immediate predecessors -- Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon, all of whom had approval averages in the 45% to 49% range.
But all in all, Reagan averaged a 53% job approval rating across his eight years in office, a little below average for recent presidents, quite a bit below the 61% average of his vice president and successor George H.W. Bush, and slightly lower than Bill Clinton's two-term average of 55%.
Still, although the last years of Reagan's life were not kind to him from a health perspective, they were very good to him as far as his image was concerned. By 1999, Americans were giving Reagan a 71% job approval rating as they looked back on his presidency, and he began showing up on lists of the greatest presidents in U.S. history.
By coincidence, this weekend, Gallup updated a question asking Americans to rate how they think recent presidents will go down in history. Fifteen percent said that Reagan will go down in history as an outstanding president, and another 43% said he will be regarded as an above-average president. That total positive rating of 58% is a far better rating than that given to either of the two Bushes, Clinton, Carter, Ford, Nixon, or Lyndon Johnson. Only John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt score higher on this measure.
Why the change in Reagan's evaluations over the years? It may be that the accomplishments of Reagan's administration, in particular the end of the Cold War and the restoration of faith in the country after the troubled years of the 1970s, have become more apparent in recent years. There is also the very real possibility that the years since Reagan's announcement of his Alzheimer's disease in 1994 have been ones in which Americans have focused more on their concern and sympathy for the man, and less on controversial aspects of his policies while he was in office.
George W. Bush
Will Reagan's death and this week's elaborate funeral activities benefit the presidential candidacy of George W. Bush? Bush is a Republican, of course, and the attention being focused on Reagan's positive contributions could draw some voters' attention toward the similarities between the two men. The memories that Americans have of Reagan certainly seem to be overwhelmingly positive, overriding the possibility that Reagan's death could stir memories of the more divisive components of his conservative administration. Regardless, five months from now when voters go to the polls, it is unlikely that Reagan's death will be a factor in the election outcome.
The June 3-6 Gallup Poll was in the field when Reagan's death was announced, and therefore did not capture the full impact -- if any -- of the former president's death on Americans' views of the current president. Bush's job approval rating is now at 49%, statistically unchanged from the 47% he received in late May.
The June 3-6 poll also provides a little more perspective on several current issues that are key to the election.
1) Perceptions of the Economy
Of particular importance is the continuing question of how Americans perceive the economy. Another positive jobs report was released on Friday, but the public's perceptions have not kept pace with real-world economic progress of the last several months. There is a slight indication of a pickup in the public's mood about the economy, but it's not much. The percentage of Americans who say that economic conditions are getting worse has dropped from 51% to 45%, while the percentage saying conditions are getting better has risen from 43% to 47%. That means the plurality of Americans once again see some light at the end of the economic tunnel, but these numbers are still considerably more negative than we found at the beginning of the year.
Importantly, about 4 in 10 still say the economy is the country's most important problem.
2) Gas Prices
The degree to which the energy situation will affect Bush this fall remains to be seen. Gallup's new poll shows that Americans have not yet become wildly pessimistic about gas prices. Fifty-six percent say the current rise in gas prices represents a permanent change (rather than a temporary fluctuation), but that's not out of line with results for this question at many other points over the last several years.
Since March, there has been little increase in the percentage of Americans who say that the price increases in gasoline have caused financial hardship for their households. And the average American guesses that the price of gas will stabilize or begin to go down once it reaches $2.34 per gallon, only about $.25 more than they report paying now.
The fact that gas prices have shot up could conceivably mean that Bush will benefit from a public opinion perspective if the price comes back down before the election -- even if that price is no different than it was earlier this year. Once expectations have been set for high prices, the return to normalcy will be interpreted on a relative basis as positive. A price of $1.70 a gallon, which was considered high a year ago, might now be considered to be reasonable. This is what social psychologists call the contrast effect: People's perceptions of an existing condition are very much predicated on what they are used to. The contrast effect is illustrated in the old joke that people like to beat their heads against the wall because it feels so good when they stop.
One potential danger sign for Bush: He receives just a 33% job approval rating for his handling of energy policy.
3) Iraq
The potential effect of the situation in Iraq on Bush's campaign is the major unknown. There is a great deal hinging on what happens after the planned June 30 turnover of power from the U.S. coalition to the Iraqis.
The weekend data show no change in how Americans view the Iraq situation. Less than a majority feels the Iraqi incursion has been worth it.
I think it is of considerable significance that 6 in 10 Americans believe the situation in Iraq is going badly for the United States at this time. In many ways, this is the perceptual framework through which the American public is going to view the June 30 handover. But a very negative view now isn't necessarily bad for the Bush administration. It won't take much good news to convince the public that things are getting a little better in Iraq, and that could be Bush's salvation. A few pictures of Iraqis appearing to enjoy a democratic form of government, and interviews with Iraqis engaging in normal diurnal activities, could help tilt the public's view of the Iraq situation more favorably toward Bush, leaving Kerry with less to criticize.
4) John Kerry
Kerry's campaign is now at a standstill in deference to the Reagan funeral proceedings. The race remains close, although in Gallup's weekend poll Kerry moved slightly into the lead among likely voters (Kerry 50%, Bush 44%) and among all registered voters (Kerry 49%, Bush 44%). Throwing Ralph Nader into the mix doesn't change things much; Kerry still leads Bush among likely voters by a 6-point margin.
It's worth pointing out (again) that since 1956, none of the five incumbent presidents who won re-election were behind their opponents in June of their election years. Being behind is not good news for Bush.
Still, there is a lot of time between now and the election, and the way Kerry handles himself could be a crucial determinant of whether he continues to take advantage of Bush's vulnerabilities this fall.
The first window of opportunity for Kerry will be the announcement of his vice presidential running mate. Polling is not of much use here because so many of Kerry's potential veeps are unknown to the public at this time. The effect of the announcement will probably be less a matter of who Kerry picks, and more a matter of what kind of publicity he receives during the announcement period.
The second window of opportunity for Kerry is the most important -- the Democratic convention in Boston. We know that Kerry will get a bounce in the polls after the convention. The real questions are how high that bounce will be and whether Kerry will be able to sustain that bounce through the Olympics in August, past the Republican convention in late August/early September, and into the fall campaign season.