# The SDMB U.S. Presidential Approval Rating **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 15, 2002, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998 "2002-07-15T03:37:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/1 "2002-07-15T03:37:21Z")
This poll is open to all U.S. dopers. After a few responses I’ll tally the votes and post the average rating for those over 35 and under 35. Feel free to add a justification for your rating if you’d like. **Location:** State **Age:** under 35, over 35 **Foreign Policy:** 1-10 (1 being the worst possible, 10 being perfect or near perfect) **Economy:** 1-10 **Education:** 1-10 **Health care:** 1-10 **Environment:** 1-10 **Drugs:** 1-10 **Approval Rating:** 1-100 In case anyone is wondering, I choose 35 because I think that is the age when most people consider themselves a full fledged adult, although I’m sure it’s a highly contestable number. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/2 "2002-07-15T04:17:28Z")
This is how I came up with my ratings. I gave a 5 if I didn’t think the Administration made something appreciably better or worse. It’s a neutral rating. 4 means their policies made things a little worse, a 6 things a bit better, etc. So with that in mind… **Location:** Arlington, VA **Age:** under 35 **Foreign Policy** : 4 **Economy** : 3 **Education** : 5 (vote’s not in with this one yet) **Health Care** : 5 **Environment** : 4 **Drugs** : 5 **Approval Rating** : 43.3 (got this by averaging out my other scores, seemed fair) ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/3 "2002-07-15T04:17:36Z")
**Location:** Kentucky **Age:** 19 **Foreign Policy:** 5, The war on Iraq is just a bad idea, but at least he’s been able to pronounce the names of foreign countries correctly **Economy:** 8, He does seem to have some interest in catching corporate crooks **Education:** 3, His education bill is laughable, it just wastes money **Health care:** 5?, Not much has happened in health care during his term **Environment:** 1, He’s already broken practically every promise he made during his campaign **Drugs:** 7, He hasn’t done anything to expand the drug war, at least **Approval Rating:** 45 ---
**Author:** ![Flymaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c4cdca/32.png) [@Flymaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flymaster)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/4 "2002-07-15T04:20:57Z")
Location: MA Age: 20 Foreign Policy: 2 Economy: 3 Education: 4 Health care: 5 Environment: 2 Drugs: 1 (that “I killed a judge” ad just pisses me off) Approval Rating: 37.5 Approval Rating: 1-100 ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/5 "2002-07-15T04:28:29Z")
**Location** : Texas **Age** : over 35 **Foreign Policy** : 8 **Economy** : 9 **Education** : 10 **Health care** : 6 \*\ ***Environment** : 10 **Drugs** : 2 Approval Rating: Well, you figure that out; I’d go about **75** ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/6 "2002-07-15T05:31:47Z")
**Location** : California **Age** : 21 **Foreign Policy** : 1 The world hasn’t blown up yet, but that is about all the good I can hand to the guy. Afghanistan went okay, but why are we foaming at the mouth to _start_ a war for no apparent reason? This “war with Iraq” just plain doesn’t make any sense, and I prefer my leaders to act within the realm of rational thought. I was going to give him a ‘2’, but if I factor in the stuff that Ashcroft is doing internally, which is very connected to foreign policy, I just can’t give any credit to this administration. With Bush, the world is a scarier place. **Economy** : 5 I really don’t see much change in things that Bush has control over. **Education** : 3 I don’t agree with his policies, but I’ll give him some credit because I havn’t seen the negative effects from them yet. **Health Care** : 4 He hasn’t done anything that pisses me off, but he also hasn’t really made any effort towards dealing with the massive massive problems with our current system. **Environment** : 2 The world hasn’t melted, but it’s gonna, and Bush apparently doesn’t care. He’s done nothing but harm to the environment, and no doubt will continue. **Drugs** : No vote I patantly don’t agree with our nation’s drug policies, so I can’t really vote on how well he is “winning” the war on drugs. **Approval Rating** : 20 The severity of the harm that he _is_ doing outweighs the credit I gave him for not completely fucking up everything. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/7 "2002-07-15T05:40:41Z")
**Location** : California **Age** : 21 **Foreign Policy** : 1 The world hasn’t blown up yet, but that is about all the good I can hand to the guy. Afghanistan went okay, but why are we foaming at the mouth to _start_ a war for no apparent reason? This “war with Iraq” just plain doesn’t make any sense, and I prefer my leaders to act within the realm of rational thought. I was going to give him a ‘2’, but if I factor in the stuff that Ashcroft is doing internally, which is very connected to foreign policy, I just can’t give any credit to this administration. With Bush, the world is a scarier place. **Economy** : 5 I really don’t see much change in things that Bush has control over. **Education** : 3 I don’t agree with his policies, but I’ll give him some credit because I havn’t seen the negative effects from them yet. **Health Care** : 4 He hasn’t done anything that pisses me off, but he also hasn’t really made any effort towards dealing with the massive massive problems with our current system. **Environment** : 2 The world hasn’t melted, but it’s gonna, and Bush apparently doesn’t care. He’s done nothing but harm to the environment, and no doubt will continue. **Drugs** : No vote I patantly don’t agree with our nation’s drug policies, so I can’t really vote on how well he is “winning” the war on drugs. **Approval Rating** : 20 The severity of the harm that he _is_ doing outweighs the credit I gave him for not completely fucking up everything. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/8 "2002-07-15T05:54:20Z")
Location: Mississippi Age: over 35 Foreign Policy: 8 Economy: 6 Education: 4 Health care: 6 \*\*Environment: 6 Drugs: 5 Approval Rating: Taking Ashcroft into consideration, I’ll say about 50.5% 😕 [sup]I voted for him and if the Dems don’t get something better, I probably will again[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Kahuna_Burger)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/9 "2002-07-15T06:05:29Z")
Location: Connecticut Age: under 35 Foreign Policy: 3 He dealt well with the War on Terrorism, but the Middle East is a mess and he’s acting like an isolationist. Economy: 4 He didn’t inherit a bull market, but the least he could’ve done was not run deficits and appoint bureaucrats who weren’t so close to the scumbags who are in the news so often now Education: 7 (a 9 if not for vouchers) I liked the education plan but he supports vouchers so I can’t rate him too high. Health Care: 3 That was an awful prescription drug program. He doesn’t seem to care about uninsured people, or the sorry state of Medicare. Environment: 1 Awful. Nausea-inducing. He’s even calling global warming junk science. This is probably the best reason you have to hate the administration Drugs: 5 I know potheads, I don’t want more of them, but not admitting we have to fight this on the demand side as well won’t win you points either. Approval Rating: After he won the nomination, I was hoping that compassionate conservatism would mean he wouldn’t be a soulless hack. I was quite disappointed: 35 or so. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/10 "2002-07-15T07:03:55Z")
Location: MI Age: under 35 Foreign Policy: 3 Economy: 5 Education: 2 Health care: 5 Environment: 1 Drugs: 3 Approval Rating: 31.6 ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/11 "2002-07-15T09:28:36Z")
**Location:** OR **Age:** 35 **Foreign Policy:** 2 **Economy:** 2 **Education:** n/a - I don’t see he has done anything so far **Health care:** n/a - see above **Environment:** 0 **Drugs:** n/a **Approval Rating:** 6 ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/12 "2002-07-15T09:49:55Z")
**Location:** Ohio **Age:** 40 **Foreign Policy:** 2 **Economy:** 4 **Education:** 5 **Health care:** 4 **Environment:** 3 **Drugs:** 5\* **Approval Rating:** Disapprove, I don’t see any real way to score this, but if you take the numbers above, it averages to 38.3%. The real way to do this is to take the percent of people who approve of the job the guy is doing against the total. Maybe with shades of Strongly Approve, Approve, Neither, Disapprove, Strongly Disapprove, No Opinion. And for any of this valid it would have to be random. \*I don’t see drugs as a big issue, either way, so chose the middle. Note: I don’t think the other choice in the last election would be doing a much better job, either. ---
**Author:** ![jacksen9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@jacksen9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacksen9)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/13 "2002-07-15T10:17:53Z")
Location: Texas Age: under over 35 Foreign Policy: 8 Economy: 7 Education: 6 Health care: 7 Environment: 4 Drugs: 7 Approval Rating: 70 ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/14 "2002-07-15T10:59:17Z")
Location: International but resident of California Age: over 35 Foreign Policy: 1. Can’t really think of anything he handled well, and a lot of examples of stuff he handled appallingly (China, Middle East, Steel tariffs, repudiating the anti-ballistic missle thing, etc.) As for handling 9-11 and the aftermath, nothing he has done stands out as remarkable. I think anyone sitting in the oval office would have done at least as well. Economy: 1. Steel tariffs, treatened trade wars, WTO, running a deficit, wanting to give out tax breaks to the rich in a deficit, the most confusing new tax regeme of modern times. Education: n/a (I just don’t follow it) Health care: n/a Environment: 2. No Kyoto or alternative. Drugs: n/a Dis-Approval Rating: 40 ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/15 "2002-07-15T13:25:02Z")
**Location:** Jersey City, New Jersey **Age** : 32 **Foreign Policy:** 1. Dear lord, the man squandered a great opportunity for coöperation between the United States and the rest of the world with his neanderthal, go-it-alone foreign policy after September 11. How to deal with Afghanistan immediately after September 11 was obvious; President Gore or President Carter or President Nader would have done the right thing; it was pretty obvious what needed to be done. But this is the wrong administration for the nation-building that is now necessary. Imposing steel tariffs solely for domestic political gain is inexcusable, and his sword-rattling vis-à-vis Iraq is just tragic. **Economy:** 2. Tax cuts? With a national debt like ours? Plus his deregulation fever which has mysteriously abated in recent weeks. Go figure, huh? **Education:** 3. School vouchers are unfair and as wise as forced busing (anyone remember that?) Mostly Bush is hands-off concerning this issue, but his obvious sympathy toward religious institutions receiving federal dollars does not bode well. If he presses tax dollars for parochial schools, this rating will drop. **Health care:** 3. I can’t say I ever expected much from Bush or his party on this issue; Gingrich and company pretty much let us know what to expect from them. His administration’s prescription drug plan is simply awful—but, of course, there’s room for disimprovement… **Environment:** 1. Industries should police themselves? Need I say more? **Drugs:** 2. “War” on drugs… “war” on terrorism… don’t we go to war with actual countries any more? Tough-sounding rhetoric that does nothing—the hallmark of the Bush Junior admistration. Richard Nixon had a better drug policy than this. Seriously. **Approval Rating:** 20 is my average, but if zeros were permitted, it’d probably be lower on the foreign policy and environment issues. Bush may be worse than Nixon, but he’s not as evil. And Bush might be as incompetent and not-in-control as Harding, but time will tell whether his administration is as corrupt. Considering Bush’s copious ethical lapses in the past, we just might have a new winner… ---
**Author:** ![Broodha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Broodha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broodha)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/16 "2002-07-15T13:45:09Z")
Location: Washington, DC Age: under 35 Foreign Policy: 3 Economy: 2 Education: 1 Health Care: 3 Environment: 2 Drugs: 5 I’d say about 26 Approval Rating: 43.3 (got this by averaging out my other scores, seemed fair) ---
**Author:** ![Tabeitha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b3f665/32.png) [@Tabeitha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabeitha)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/17 "2002-07-15T14:28:55Z")
Location: Washington, DC Age: 30 Foreign Policy: 2 Economy: 2 Education: 1 My college won’t even mail out grades anymore due to all the budget cuts. Health Care: n/a Environment: 2 Drugs: 1 Approval Rating: 8 ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/18 "2002-07-15T14:49:37Z")
Location: NY Age: 38 Foreign Policy: 3 Economy: 3 Education: 3 Health care: 4 Environment: 1 Drugs: 3 Approval Rating: 35 ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/19 "2002-07-15T15:50:42Z")
Location: Austin, TX Age: 41 Foreign Policy: 8 Economy: 5 Education: 5 Health care: 5 Environment: 6 Drugs: 5 Approval rating: 65 Speaking for the far right (if I may be so bold), Bush has done a decent job under difficult circumstances, and is better than most alternatives… but that’s not enough to merit any enthusiasm so far. Approval Rating: 1-100 ---
**Author:** ![YEP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/43a26b/32.png) [@YEP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YEP)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998/20 "2002-07-15T16:38:10Z")
Location: VA Age: under 35 Foreign Policy: 8 I would like to see more action Economy: 8 Education: 6 Health care: 6 Environment: 7 Drugs: 6 Approval Rating: 90 I didn’t average my scores,b/c I believe there’s more to take in consideration. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-u-s-presidential-approval-rating/118998.md?page=2)