Bush is almost as unpopular as John Kerry

Here's one of those things that almost tempts me into feeling better.  But not quite, because I don't quite understand it.  Its no secret that Bush's approval ratings are not what he would like them to be, which is rather like saying that the maiden voyage of the Titanic didn't meet projections.   But Survey USA did something innovative and interesting.  They measured Bush's popularity in all the states that he won in 2004, and Kerry's popularity in all the states that went blue. I confess I never thought of doing that. 

Bush's approval rating beats disapproval in just four states: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Nebraska.  Oklahoma is evenly divided, while the Commander in Chief is 15 points down in South Dakota.  It must be hard for Karl Rove, free now to concentrate his mind on November, to find any good news in that. 

But if Bush should be glum, Kerry has to be in a pit of despair.  The survey ranks the fifty states from the best to the worst approval/disapproval margins.  Bush holds the first 21 places, and ties at North Carolina/Wisconsin, where Bush and Kerry are both down by 19 points.   But Kerry is least unpopular in Wisconsin, of all the states he won.  The thirteen worst disapproval/approval ratings are all Kerry states.  In Michigan, place 38, almost a third of the respondents approve of Kerry while 65% disapprove.  In New York, Kerry is down by 48 points, and in Rhode Island, the bottom, the approval/disapproval polls show 24% vs. 74%, a margin apparently representing half the voters!  That puts him just ahead, I suspect, of recession and the bubonic plague. 

There are two probable explanations.  One is that blue state voters are mad at Kerry precisely because he lost.  That's what I would be arguing if I were a Democrat, and there is something to it.  Both Al Gore and John Kerry are held responsible for eight years of Dubya.  Since I am not a Democrat I will argue that Bush's unpopularity has not translated into any increased affection for the Democratic alternatives.  Bush won in 2004 not because his positions enjoyed strong support.  They didn't.  He won because he had positions.  Stop the average voter in Rhode Island and ask her what Kerry stood for when he ran for the White House.  I predict she will be stumped.