Monday, May 15, 2006

Ehhhh...   [Jonah Goldberg]

I think it was an altogether undramatic evening. I doubt David Frum — and a bunch of readers — are right when they predict Bush's numbers will be driven down by the speech. My guess is he sounded pretty reasonable to most Americans not already deeply committed on the issue of immigration. That means he didn't lose many base conservatives not already lost and he didn't lose many Democrats not already passionately opposed to him (if there were any left in the first place). My guess is he gained a smidgen of ground in the middle and even among some Republicans. I think he was probably also helped among independents because the Big Swinging Pundits like Russert made it sound like Bush was staking out the principled middle against the supposedly rabid right and left. He might even have gained a smidgen among Hispanic Americans (i.e. citizens of Hispanic descent) who've probably been unusually anti-Bush in recent polls. But, again, I think the biggest reason he won't go down is because he doesn't have much room to go much lower.

05/15 09:12 PMShare