The Washington Post notes that Bush's 56 percent approval rating, while "good by historical standards" (it doesn't explain what this means), reveals that the president has finally lost his post-Sept. 11 bounce. An accompanying graph (in the online version, at least) makes this clear. Independents are evenly split on Bush (52 percent approve, 47 percent disapprove), while Republicans are almost unanimously supportive (87 percent), and Democrats largely against (only 24 percent approve).Thank you for that completely stupid and useless bit of reporting. Let's break it down, shall we?
An approval rating of just over half (which, I gotta tell you, sounds really pathetic, but is no surprise). His own party, of course, mostly supports him, and the opposing party, of course, mostly does not. Everyone else is about evenly decided. Well, no shit, Sherlock. As deeply ingrained as the 'party system' is in this country's politics, most people barely care above what their party says. They're Democrat? Then they vote for the Democrat candidate. They're Republican? Then the Republican man has their vote. Of the Independants, well, it works the same, if their party has someone in that vote, if not, then they eventually decide on the lesser of two evils.
Why are any of you affiliated with a political party anyway? What does it matter? Shouldn't you care about the candidate himself, not what group of good ol' boys he threw his lot in with? Backing this party system just insures that, as citizens, you stay removed form the election process...and we are too far removed from our government as it is. Saying that you are a member of a political party means about as much as cheering for your favorite sports team: you have a mascot, and when the 'big conflict' comes, you cheer for the plays you liked and yell about the ones you don't, and eventually your team either wins or loses, and the losers grumble about waiting until next time, while the winners have a big party; all the while, the TV crews are covering the event, giving the folks at home a play-by-play account of the event...and in the end, it all really happened without your involvement. Party affiliation doesn't really mean squat...especially for us out here in the real world.
Stand for yourself. It's a much more impressive position.