Poll: Bush job approval hits 50%

I have never considered polls as carrying much weight as to what the whole public actually thinks. After the big deal made a short time ago about the Presidents low poll ratings I find this quite interesting anyway.

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Investor confidence rebounds to near post-9/11 high point

Following a series of speeches meant to shore up support for the war on terror, President Bush's overall job approval rating has reached 50 percent, as investor confidence nears its post-9/11 high point, according to a pair of new surveys.

Scott Rasmussen of polling firm Rasmussen Reports says Bush's new approval rating has climbed six points since his speech Sunday night from the Oval Office in which he pledged America "will help the Iraqi people build a new Iraq with a constitutional, representative government that respects civil rights and has security forces sufficient to maintain domestic order … ."

In a series of speeches beginning Dec. 7, Bush reiterated oft-repeated claims of the importance for both the U.S. and Iraq to stay the course in the embattled Arab nation. He also has recounted progress in the war on terror and the situation in Iraq. Bush has emphasized that in Iraq, a series of elections over the past several months has ushered in a new period of democracy in a nation once firmly in the grip of dictator Saddam Hussein.

Rasmussen said Bush has not seen 50 percent approval ratings since July.

As to investor confidence, the polling firm said its current finding of 145.9 was the highest in 17 months, adding it was only five points off the firm's highest-ever rating in the immediate aftermath of Saddam's capture by American forces in a Dec. 13, 2003, raid near his hometown of Tikrit.

"Other than the Hussein bounce, the Rasmussen Investor Index has topped today's reading just twice since it was created in October 2001. The Index reached 146.0 once in June 2004 and once in July 2004," said Rasmussen.

In the same report Rasmussen said consumer confidence also was up two points, to 119.2, the highest level since February. In all, he found, "America's economic confidence is nearing the highest levels of the post-9/11 era."