Amazingly, some Swampland readers seem to think my earlier post about President Bush’s State of the Union address was too sympathetic to Bush, which proves nothing but that the left is as full of unthinking Ditto-heads as Limbaugh-land. My point was that Bush is looking to the past, including to Bill Clinton in 95 and 98, for models on how to resurrect a presidency. I did not say it would work. In fact, I predicted it would not.
One commentor was correct in noting that when Clinton delivered his 1995 State of the Union, his approval ratings were not “mired in the 30s” but had risen into the 40s. What is true, however, is that Clinton’s first-term approval rating did drop into the 30s, with a low of 37% in June 1993. And his disapproval rose to 54% in September 1994 as he headed into the mid-terms that delivered the GOP the House and Senate.
