CHAPTER 13 PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL EXERCISES



CHAPTER 13 PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL EXERCISES

Exercise 13.1: Measurement and Methodology Issues

13-1a) Question Wording and Interpretation:

Chapter 2 discusses some of the effects of question wording – especially “bad” question wording – can have on the results of a poll. However, even innocent or intentional but non-controversial differences in wording can have different effects or lead to different conclusions. Presidential approval polls are no different: how you ask the question may affect the results and/or your interpretation of them.

One of the most common differences in question wording concerns the degree of support for the president elicited in a poll. Some polls simply ask whether one approves of the president, while others ask for more specific ratings.

Below are the results of three polls – and two different wordings - on George W. Bush’s performance from two different points in time. The first is just before the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, and the second, roughly a year after the war in Iraq began in March, 2004.

Note: Gallup and CBS/New York Times wording: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as President?”; ABC/Washington Post wording: “Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as President?” (If Approve/Disapprove, ask:) “Do you approve/disapprove strongly or somewhat?”

Table 13-1a.1: George W. Bush: Right before Sept. 11

Gallup (9/7/01) CBS/NYT (8/28/01)

Approve: 51 50

Disapprove: 39 38

No Opinion: 10 12

ABC/WP (9/3/01)

Strongly Approve: 26

Somewhat Approve: 29

Somewhat Disapprove: 20

Strongly Disapprove: 22

No Opinion: 3

Table 13-1a.2: George W. Bush: March, 2004

Gallup (3/8-9/04) CBS/NYT (3/10-12/04)

Approve: 50 51

Disapprove: 47 42

No Opinion: 3 7

ABC/WP (3/6-8/04)

Strongly Approve: 32

Somewhat Approve: 18

Somewhat Disapprove: 12

Strongly Disapprove: 36

No Opinion: 2

Consider the following questions after a detailed examination of the tables above.

1. What impression do you get of Bush’s ratings in each instance? What affect does the way the question is asked have on the results?

2. How do Bush’s approval ratings compare in the two cases, based on the different wordings?

3. If you were to write a brief news story on Bush’s approval in each instance, how would it be affected by which type of question wording/poll you used?

13-1b) Personal versus Professional “Popularity”

As your text notes in Chapter 13, it’s not exactly clear what the approval question is measuring. This conundrum is not entirely uncommon in survey research; as Chapter 2 also discussed, one difficulty with studying public opinion is knowing how to properly measure the underlying concept you want to know more about (known as operationalization). One manifestation of this problem in the analysis of presidential approval is whether the polls may be measuring opinions toward the President as opposed to the job he is doing.

Here, to explore the distinction between personal popularity and job performance, and give you a better idea of just what we are measuring when we talk about “presidential popularity,” (and why your authors prefer the term “presidential approval” over “popularity” when referring to the job approval question), you will analyze the results of some polls about President Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan is a particularly good example because he was widely known as “the Great Communicator” and supposedly charismatic and charming, hence why he was supposedly a very popular president, yet contrary to popular belief, his job approval ratings were about average, and his “personal popularity” was actually somewhat lower than other presidents. Review the table below, which gives parallel ratings of Reagan’s job and personal approval from polls which asked separate questions about each.

Graph 31.1b: Job v. Personal Approval of Ronald Reagan

[pic]Source of data for graph: George Edwards III and Alec Gallup, Presidential Approval: A Sourcebook (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1990), pp. 132-33.

Questions:

1. What do you notice about these two ratings? What conclusions can you draw about the relationship (if any) between personal and professional approval by the public?

2. If you know anything about the 1980s and events during Reagan’s presidency, can you explain why we see the changes in his ratings in both areas at different points in time during his tenure in office?

3. You might want to try a similar experiment with polls about Bill Clinton, another supposed smooth talking, “Great Communicator” in the White House who also was both popular and controversial during his term. In particular, examine polls measuring his personal and professional “popularity” before and after the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998 (see the text’s Box in this chapter for more information on this case, and then go out and find polls on opinions of Clinton “as a person” and “as a president.”). What do you conclude?

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