ABC and Washington Post Poll: Blame Bush mostly a matter of party and race

ABC News: Poll: Bush Not Taking Brunt of Katrina Criticism:

"Sept. 4, 2005 — Americans are broadly critical of government preparedness in the Hurricane Katrina disaster — but far fewer take George W. Bush personally to task for the problems, and public anger about the response is less widespread than some critics would suggest."

While 44% of respondents blame Bush, two-thirds fault the preparedness of federal agencies and three-quarters say state and local agencies were inadequately prepared. By a single percentage point, 47-46, more respondents disapproved than approved of Bush's handling of the crisis.

ABC notes how much better Bush fared in polls right after 9/11 (91% approval) without offering reasons why that might have been so. For instance, media coverage did not focus on government failings - largely because so many firefighters and police died in the collapse of the towers and the obvious fact that that there was little hope for survivors. Add to that the fact that there were fewer multi-jurisdictional issues and the death toll was very low by comparison to Hurricane Katrina.

Partisanship seems to play the key role in evaluation of Bush's response to Katrina. While independents split against Bush by 44-48, Republicans approve his role by 74-22, but Democrats split 17-71 against him. The role of race is hard to separate from the role of partisan affiliation. Non-whites, according to the survey, are 23 points more likely to be Democrats and 23 points more likely to be critical of Bush. With a sample of only 501, the cells for non-whites would not yield useful data and are not reported separately here.

I was disappointed to note that Republicans are nearly as likely as
Democrats to put down the rise in gas prices to profiteering by oil companies. I suspect this has something to do with the lousy state of economic education in this country and with the failure of the media to point out all the damage to pipeline capacity and refinery facilities.

Perhaps the most interesting finding was the question whether people felt hopeful. Shock, anger and shame characterize 63-68 percent of Democrats and 42-27 percent of Republicans, but on hopeful, the "yes" answer came from one half of Democrats, 61% of Independents, but 80% of Republicans. I would love to see details on this, but I suspect it is related to religious affiliation.