Originally posted by Frogm4n
without wars or terrorist attacks both the bush's approval rateings plumet
As does the approval rating of just about any president. The mean approval rating for presidents over time stands at about 54%. Typically approval does not begin at that level, however, and when you consider that the average approval rating for presidents entering office hovers at around 70%, from a statistical perspective there's an over-time stochastic push downward on approval ratings irrespective of actual events. In other words, there's not a lot of room to go above 70%, but there's a lot of room to go below it. The natural process of equilibration tends to push high numbers toward the mean in the middle.
For that reason, so long as approval ratings stand above about 54%, you'll see that downward trend like Bush Sr. suffered. You didn't actually expect to see an
upward trend from his 91% approval, did you? By the same token, approval ratings below the mean level tend to push upward toward the equilibrium over time.
Wars and terrorist attacks may offer a temporary boost to approval, but time and again we see that this boost decays back to standard levels after awhile.
-- Todd/Leviathn
