Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Barack Obama, left, and former President George W. Bush arrive at the opening ceremony of the George W. Bush Presidential Center on April 25, 2013 in Dallas, Texas.

That second term can be a real problem.

On May 19, 2005, the Pew Research Center reported that then-President George W. Bush’s popularity was slipping:

“Americans are critical of President Bush’s job performance in many policy areas, but negative opinions of his handling of the economy and Iraq are doing the most damage to his overall approval rating, which now stands at 43 percent. Just 35 percent approve of the president’s handling of the economy, down from 43 percent in February and 45 percent in January.”

“`With the level of violence rising in Iraq, Bush’s ratings also have slipped on that issue ­ from 45 percent in January, to 40 percent in February, and 37 percent currently. Over the same period, positive opinions of his handling of foreign policy have fallen 10 points, to 38 percent. There has been greater stability in Bush’s marks on energy policy and Social Security, but he gets positive ratings of only about 30 percent on both issues (energy policy 31 percent, Social Security 29 percent).”

President Barack Obama has no Iraq war to worry about, and he is winding down U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

But he does have the IRS to worry about now.

And that cuts closer to home for more Americans than any foreign conflict in recent years.

Having accepted the forced resignation of the acting IRS commissioner this week after it was revealed that workers had singled out Tea Party-related groups for scrutiny, the president will confront continuing questions as the first of the congressional hearings start tomorrow.

The president’s job approval, which reached 58 percent after reelection, in December, stood at 53 percent as recently as mid-April in the Gallup Poll’s count. Today, it is down to 48 percent in a three-day survey, May 13-15.

By the Pew Research Center’s count, the president’s job approval stood at 51 percent in April, after slipping to 47 percent in March.

Both counts are somewhat better than the 43 percent that Bush was looking at in this stage of his second term.

Nate Silver has taken it a step further, looking at the average standing of past seven presidents, back to Harry Truman.

“The seven presidents were quite popular, on average, in their first term,” Silver reports at the FiveThirtyEight blog. “Their approval ratings averaged 59 percent throughout their first term, and 57 percent in the final year of their first term, when they faced an election.”

“By contrast, the same presidents averaged a 48 percent approval rating during their second term. Moreover, their approval ratings declined throughout their second term – to an average of only 42 percent by the final year of their second term.”

At the same time, he attempts to dispel the myth of the cursed second term.

Original post is Obama’s Second Term vs. Bush’s Second Term: Job Approval #s by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

George P. Bush

George P. Bush, fourth generation of a family whose political lines have run through Connecticut, Texas and Florida, is coming to Washington to help raise money for “the Donkey Whisperer.”

That’s first-term Texas Rep. Roger Williams, billing Bush as a “special guest” at Thursday’s fundraiser — credit Paul Bedard’s Washington Secrets with this tip.

Bush is running for land commissioner back home — an office considered a gateway to greater statewide office, and perhaps more in the case of a family that counts two presidents, one U.S. senator and a governor in its lineage.

George Prescott Bush is the first-born son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, nephew of former President George W. Bush, grandson son of former President George H.W. Bush, great-grandson of Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush.

And the Donkey Whisperer ad is worth the watching — ask the other 2 million people who have viewed it.

Seems Williams also was first to endorse Bush’s own campaign:

Big day for @teamgeorgep yesterday with our first endorsement from @rogerwilliamstx and two swell events in DFW twitter.com/georgepbush/st…

— George P. Bush (@georgepbush) April 3, 2013

Original post is George P. Bush Raising Money for Texas’ ‘Donkey Whisperer’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore speaks during an interview at the annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California.

Ken Wells and Ari Levy report for Bloomberg News today:

In 1999, Al Gore, then U.S. vice president and a Democratic candidate for president, sold $6,000 worth of cows.

The former senator, who spent most of his working life in Congress, had a net worth of about $1.7 million and assets that included pasture rents from a family farm and royalties from a zinc mine, remnants of his rural roots in Carthage, Tennessee. Funds from the cattle sale went to three of his kids, according to federal disclosure forms filed as part of his presidential run.

Fourteen years later, he made an estimated $100 million in a single month. In January, the Current TV network, which he helped to start in 2004, was sold to Qatari-owned Al Jazeera Satellite Network for about $500 million. After debt, he grossed an estimated $70 million for his 20 percent stake, according to people familiar with the transaction.

Two weeks later, Gore exercised options, at $7.48 a share, on 59,000 shares of Apple Inc. stock that he’d been granted for serving on the Cupertino, California-based company’s board since 2003. On paper, it was about a $30 million payday based on the company’s share price on the day he claimed the options.

That’s a pretty good January for a guy who couldn’t yet call himself a multimillionaire when he briefly slipped from public life after his bitterly contested presidential election loss to George W. Bush in late 2000, based on 1999 and 2000 disclosure forms.

Gore isn’t finished exercising his Apple stock grants. Those 59,000 are part of 101,358 Apple options and shares of restricted stock Gore has amassed, according to company filings, giving his total holdings a gross value of more than $45.6 million today.

Albert Arnold Gore Jr., 65, is a lot of things to a lot of people. Among friends and fans, he’s the progressive Democrat who should have been president, visionary author and Internet prophet, the man who more than anyone drove climate change to the center of public consciousness.

Detractors see Gore as a limousine liberal, tiresome pedant and climate alarmist who lives a jet-setting, carbon-profligate lifestyle while preaching asceticism for everyone else.

 For the full report on Gore, see Bloomberg.com.

Original post is Al Gore is Romney-Rich by Political Capital.

Photograph by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush autographs his new book ‘Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution’ before speaking at the Reagan Library on March 8, 2013 in Simi Valley, California.

“The success of conservative principles is the best kept secret in American politics,” Jeb Bush writes. And it’s all a matter of communication, he says.

If what the Republican Party has here is a failure to communicate, the former Florida governor points to some talking points:

“Four of the most popular governors in the country – Chris Christie of New Jersey, Bob McDonnell of Virginia, Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada – are from states that supported President Obama last year,” he writes today at Rare.US — “red in the center.”

There are 30 Republican governors, Republican majorities in 26 state legislators, he notes, and the Southeast is leading “a renaissance in American manufacturing” — Boeing Dreamliners built in South Carolina (the batteries are another story.)

Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, one of Bush’s favorite former governors, and Michigan’s Rick Snyder, one of his favorite sitting ones, have made the right-to-work an advantage. His own Rick Scott has “a job-creating juggernaut” in Florida, challenging Texas’ Rick Perry to “ friendly jobs-race.”

“As Republicans,” he writes, “we must focus on a positive message about our success and our vision. Instead of spending all our time and resources saying why President Obama and the Democrats’ ideas are wrong for Americans, we must provide clearly articulated alternatives… Not only must we pursue reform, we must do a much better job communicating how these reforms protect and promote the genius of America.”

Of course, his own family has some work to do in its own communications. His older brother, former President George W. Bush, suggested last week during interviews surrounding the dedication of his presidential library in Texas that Jeb Bush should run for president in 2016. But their mother, wife of another former president, said flatly: ``We’ve had enough Bushes.”

The former two-term governor has said he is “open” to the idea.

“Sure, he’d be terrific, he’d be a wonderful president,” former first lady Laura Bush said of Jeb Bush in 2016. “But who knows? We don’t know, and we’re just letting him decide.”

Original post is Jeb Bush’s ‘Best Kept Secret’ by Political Capital.

For $5, the party is peddling a bumper-sticker that does the trick.

The former president’s own emotion-choked conclusion is in replay now.

The four other living past and present presidents have gone their ways.

It’s time, the Republican Party suggests, to “thank W.”

For $5, the party is peddling a bumper-sticker that does the trick.

The party also notes that the four-by-inch vinyl sticker is removable.

Original post is ‘Thanks W:’ Removable Party Sticker by Political Capital.

Photograph by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Former President George W. Bush and Alan Lowe, director of the George W. Bush Presidential Center arrive for a signing ceremony for the joint use agreement between the National Archive and the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the campus of Southern Methodist University on April 24, 2013 in Dallas, Texas.

George W. Bush hasn’t done much talking since leaving the White House.

Tomorrow, with the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Texas, the former governor of the Lone Star state and two-term president is uncapping.

Charlie Rose will be interviewing the 43rd president for CBS News’ “This Morning,” airing on the morning of the dedication at the campus of Southern Methodist University near Dallas, the alma mater of former first lady Laura Bush.

Diane Sawyer’s latest interview of Bush airs tonight on ABC News’ “World News Tonight.” Segments also will air on “Nightline” and on “Good Morning America.”

 Matt Lauer is promoting “the first live interview with the president and his wife during the ceremonial day” at NBC News’ “Today Show.

They will talk about the birth of the Bush’s first granddaughter to “Today’s Own Jenna Bush Hager,” and more.

The former president’s father, the 41st president, will be there for the dedication — his presidential library and museum sits at Texas A&M in College Station. President Barack Obama will be there, as will former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter — all making their first reunion since January 2009.

Even C-SPAN will get in on the interviews.

Original post is George W. Bush Unplugged by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Delegates watch a video about former President George W. Bush at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Tampa, Florida.

“After the most unpopular second term of the post-World War II era, ” pollster Gary Langer reports, former President George W. Bush “has gained in public esteem as time since his presidency has passed – not that the public’s ready yet to throw him bouquets.”

As President Barack Obama and others head to Dallas this week for the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center — a library, museum and research institute at the campus of Southern Methodist University — ABC News and the Washington Post have done some polling on the stature of the 43rd president. Bush’s approval ratings remain upside down in most cases, though he has recovered some ground.

His first term opened with a bid to reform education, and produced the No Child Left Behind Act by year’s end. It also saw the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which overran much of his domestic agenda for the remainder of that term — save for some tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. It saw an invasion of Afghanistan in retaliation for 9/11, with a war that has run more than a decade, and it brought an invasion of Iraq in pursuit of suspected weapons of mass destruction that never materialized. More than 6,000 Americans have died in those wars — the Iraq war still largely unpopular. His hopes of overhauling immigration laws were set aside during that first term, and defeated in the Senate in his second term.

Bush left office in January 2009 with record-low approval ratings.

Now, Langer reports for ABC and the Post, Bush’s overall approval rating is 14 percentage points higher than at the end of his second term, his approval for handling of the economy 19 points higher, “and he’s gained, although more slightly, on the Iraq war as well.’

This is not unusual. “In polls four to five years after the end of their presidencies, Bush’s father gained 18 points in approval, but Bill Clinton slipped by 4 and Ronald Reagan lost 12,” Langer writes. ”(Reagan later improved in retrospect; it just took more time.)”

“Bush left office with just 33 percent approval, and a disapproval rating, 66 percent, that tied the disgraced Richard Nixon as the highest on record for a departing president in polls since the Roosevelt administration. Bush’s approval rating on average across his second-term, for its part, stands alone as the lowest on record in modern polling.”

“With his improvements since returning to Texas, Bush remains negatively rated on two central issues of his presidency, but more narrowly so than when he was in office. The public by 53-43 percent disapproves of his handling of the economy, compared with 73-24 percent in late 2008. And this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that Americans by 57-40 percent disapprove of his decision to invade Iraq. That compares with a 65-33 percent negative rating for his handling the situation there in mid-2008.”

The survey of 1,000 adults was run April 17-21 and has a possible margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

See the full ABC/Post Poll here.

See Bush camp celebration here:

As Pres Bush gets ready 2retake the stage, his approval rating is up to 47%. Same level as Pres Obama wapo.st/11H9Lku

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) April 23, 2013

Original post is Bush Revisited: Regaining Lost Ground by Political Capital.

Photograph by Sam Hodgson/Bloomberg

U.S. Border Patrol agents monitor the area near the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, California, on March 21, 2012.

Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, offers this reason for supporting an overhaul of immigration laws: It will help national security.

Durbin, in an interview on “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend on Bloomberg Television, said that strengthening border security, providing a path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, and new steps to make sure visitors don’t overstay their visas would improve security. His comments came as two immigrants were blamed for the Boston Marathon bombings.

“It’s the right question at the right time, because we’re talking about what to do with foreigners in the United State sor coming to the United States,” Durbin said. “And it’s put in the context, clearly, of our national security first.”

President George W. Bush, in 2001, was discussing a plan to allow undocumented immigrants to remain the U.S. Those proposals were derailed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In 2007, the Senate failed to overcome a filibuster to enact a Bush-backed immigration bill.

This time, Durbin said senators of both parties who authored the proposed immigration legislation are fanning out to their colleagues in the House to try to get bipartisan support in both chambers.

“Some of them are running into some resistance,” Durbin said, “but they’re also finding those who want to talk.”

Read the full story here.

Original post is Durbin Says Immigration Law Overhaul Is National Security Issue by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Copies of the Fiscal Year 2014 Budget sit on a pallet at the U.S. Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C. on April 8, 2013.

By Jonathan Nicholson

When Republicans and Democrats describe each other’s budgets, a person could be forgiven for thinking the plans are as far apart as possible.

Republicans say putting the budget into balance by 2023 is necessary to help get the economy on track, with spending reductions alone and not raising taxes. Democrats say the cuts would hurt growth and instead want to stabilize the deficit in proportion to the size of the economy.

Not long ago — and seemingly forgotten in the current debate about spending programs and tax reform – Republicans said the deficits under George W. Bush were sustainable and in proportion to the size of the economy, while Democrats criticized Republicans and Bush for not reducing the deficit more quickly, Bloomberg BNA reported.

With the deficit-to-GDP ratio in fiscal 2012 at 7.0 percent, the switch in tone begs the question: Have times changed or have only the political winds shifted, reflecting the difference in control of the White House?

Read the full story at Bloomberg.com.

Original post is Bush Debt Load Endorsed by Republicans Now Rejected by Political Capital.

Photograph by Kim Johnson Flodin/AP Photo

The exterior of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas.

There was no shortage of controversy when the leafy, Georgian-styled campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Laura Bush’s alma mater, was chosen as the home for the George W. Bush Presidential Center (see my piece published six years ago today).

Some of the faculty at SMU worried that the Bush Institute in particular, conceived as a place for the study of issues promoted by the 43rd president, would become a partisan think tank clouding the image of a university committed to independent academic research. They were outvoted.

There was serious sentiment among the nation’s Methodist bishops, as the church owns the land on which the university sits, that the campus was no place to honor a president who prosecuted a war in Iraq that many of them opposed. They were outvoted.

Now comes the ribbon-cutting. On May 1, the center housing the institute, presidential library and museum is set to open. On April 25, President Barack Obama and his wife are expected to attend the dedication of the center.

Over the weekend, Dana Perino, Bush’s former press secretary, took a preview tour.

We’re awaiting word on the WMD exhibit. (Is that it in this picture?):

Great having @danaperino at the #BushCenter this weekend for a preview of the Museum twitter.com/TheBushCenter/…

— TheBushCenter (@TheBushCenter) April 8, 2013

Original post is Bush Center: The New Dallas by Political Capital.