What will the political effects of Katrina be?
Fred Barnes, always eager to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, touts an ABC News poll supposedly showing Bush won't be hurt much by Katrina in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today:
Americans break along normal partisan lines in judging Mr. Bush's performance in coping with Katrina, an ABC News poll found. Only a minority (44%) fault him personally. Even so, his approval rating may slip a bit.
However, that poll was conducted on Sept. 2, the day after Katrina hit. At that point, the full scope of the government's failure to address the situation in New Orleans wasn't entirely clear. And, as Mystery Pollster points out, a poll conducted in only one night will have a lower response rate and therefore may not be fully representative of the public at large (the other polls that are available are also less than ideal -- see MP for more).
In short, we don't know yet about the long-term effects of Katrina politically, which could be much more damaging for Bush than Barnes allows, especially since many Republicans have acknowledged that the response to the hurricane was a failure, which will cue party faithful that the President really did screw up. Later this week, when new conventional polls are released, we'll know a lot more.
Update 9/7: More on problems with the ABC News poll here.
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