Cornyn's imaginary Bush renaissance

During a C-SPAN interview taped Friday, National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman John Cornyn claimed "a lot of people are looking back with more fondness on President Bush's administration" (video):

Cornyn also defended Democrats' attempts to make former President Bush an issue in the 2010 election. "I think President Bush's stock has gone up a lot since he left office," Cornyn said, citing Bush's response to Sept. 11. "I think a lot of people are looking back with more fondness on President Bush's administration, and I think history will treat him well."

While conservatives may be "looking back with more fondness on President Bush's administration," there's no evidence of a general pro-Bush shift in public opinion. Here's a chart showing the proportion of the public that reports having a favorable or positive opinion of Bush since January 2009:

The trendline is essentially flat. Given the state of the economy, for which many Americans hold Bush responsible*, I wouldn't expect his ratings to improve any time soon.

* A June NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found (PDF) that 40% of Americans think Bush is "solely responsible" or "mainly responsible" for the state of the economy and an additional 46% think he is "only somewhat responsible."

Update 7/19 12:59 PM: I see NBC's First Read noted the lack of change in ratings of Bush in the NBC/WSJ poll this morning. I have also embedded a clip of Cornyn's statement from Think Progress above.

[Cross-posted to Pollster.com]

Comments

[Sabina's Hat]

Does the Fox News poll tilt conservative? Because if so, then it is conservatives who would seem to be less positive about Bush since he left office.

[Rob]

As we used to say when I was in college, let me clarify Brendan's footnote. The NBC/WSJ poll didn't exactly ask whether Bush was responsible for the state of the economy. What it asked encompassed both Bush individually and the policies of his administration:

How responsible is former President George W. Bush and his administration’s policies for the country’s
current economic conditions?

[David in Cal]

Brendan wrote"

While conservatives may be "looking back with more fondness on President Bush's administration," there's no evidence that the American people are doing so.

Are conservatives not American people?

Brendan seems to be channeling James Watt, Reagan's infamous interior secretary, who reportedly said:

“I never use the words Democrats and Republicans. It’s Liberals and Americans.

[bnyhan]

That wasn't intentional - I was just trying to juxtapose an ideological subgroup (conservatives) with the public more generally. Amended the wording slightly above to try to avoid any unintended interpretations.