1s Vs 5s

Just as George W Bush was starting to close the gap between the number of people who strongly approve and disapprove of his performance, the gap has been blown wide open in the wake of the DP world port transfer controversy.

Today just 21% strongly approve, while 39% strongly disapprove of the President’s performance according to Rasmussen Reports.  What was even on Election Day 2004, and got as low as 9% recently, this gap between enthusiastic supporters and dissenters is now 18%.

This is extremely important in an election year.  While President Bush is not running for re-election, many of is fellow republicans are facing some very tough challengers when you look at each individual race they have to run in.

In a country where roughly half of all Americans are registered to vote, and half of those actually show up on Election Day, new voter registration and convincing those who don’t punch a party’s ticket automatically is key.  It’s a battle between what inside pollsters refer to as their 1s and 5s. I’ll explain. 1s are people who are with out a doubt voting for you and try to get as many people to join them.  2s are people who will most likely vote for you, but their minds can be changed, they aren’t going to change anyone else mind, and they vote at a smaller rate than 1s do. 3s are you true undecided independents, who generally don’t vote, and their votes are generally splitt. 4s and 5s are your opponent’s respective 2s and 1s.

In the past 3 election cycles, while the democrats 1s were the loudest and got the most press coverage, the republicans 1s possessed a greater ability to get out the vote.  

That clearly is not the case this time, and this advantage seven months before election day is so great that even Howard Dean might be able to screw it up.