Saturday, September 28, 1996

Texas Poll shows George W. Bush, Clinton with high marks By ANNA M. TINSLEY
Harte-Hanks Texas Poll Syndicate
Copyright 1996 Harte-Hanks Communications

More than two-thirds of Texans say George W. Bush is doing an excellent or good job as governor, according to The Harte-Hanks Texas Poll, and nearly half approve of Bill Clinton's performance as president.

Clinton's job approval rating - 47 percent of Texans approve of his performance - is his highest in the state since he took office. Bush's 68 percent approval rating - compared with 70 percent in March - is one of the highest ratings of Texas governors in the past decade. More than half of Texans say Bush should run for president someday.

But some Texas Republicans aren't getting the same high job approval ratings Bush is. Ratings for both U.S. senators - Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison - have dropped since March.

And 30 percent of Texans approve of the job the Republican-dominated Congress is doing - a 17-point increase from 1992.

Clinton's improving marks likely are the result of a stable economy, a drop in unemployment and a decrease in violent crime nationwide, political observers say. And that should be good news for his re-election campaign.

"If Clinton is approaching 50 percent in Texas, that's means he's running way ahead of that in 45 other states," said Cal Jillson, chairman of the political science department at Southern Methodist University. "Texas and a few other southern states are the bastions of the Republican Party at the presidential level."

Clinton's 47-percent approval rating is a percentage point higher than it was in March. Thirty-five percent of Texans say his performance is only fair and 16 percent say it's poor. His lowest rating was in 1993, when only 27 percent of Texans approved of the job he was doing.

"People are getting the focus on Bill Clinton's record in Texas," said Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, who is leading Clinton's Texas election campaign. "As Republican attacks continued, Clinton said he'll talk about issues and not attacks. And as people look at the Republican alternative, Clinton is doing better and better."

Tom Pauken, state Republican Party chairman, said he was surprised at Clinton's ratings.
"I'm surprised his negatives aren't higher in Texas than they are," Pauken said. "I don't think people have had a national leader they can really get behind since (President) Reagan."

For Bush, whose marks far exceeded those of Clinton, Gramm and Hutchison, 68 percent of Texans say he's doing a good or excellent job. Four percent say he's doing a poor job and 21 percent say only fair.

Former Gov. Ann Richards, Bush's predecessor, earned her highest approval rating in 1994: 60 percent.

"Gov. Bush has great name recognition and good approval ratings," said Allan Saxe, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. "There hasn't been anything bad showing up in the papers or in people's consciousness to take away from that."

Fifty-four percent of Texans say Bush should run for president someday. Twenty-eight percent disagree and 18 percent don't know.

"People are looking around and saying there isn't a Republican on the horizon after (presidential candidate) Bob Dole. But there's Bush," Saxe said.

"If Dole goes down in defeat and Bush has a good legislative session next year, he could emerge as a major figure - if he wants it."

Bush spokesman Ray Sullivan said Bush is flattered by the results, but they don't reflect the governor's goals.

"His goal is to be the best governor of Texas that he can be," Sullivan said. "He is not looking beyond that job. He has seen both the presidency and the governorship from a unique perspective, and he has the better job here in Texas."

That less than a third of Texans believe Congress is doing a good job is no surprise, UTA's Saxe said.

"Congress has always had low ratings," he said. "People think overall that Congress is bad, but their own congressman is good.

"It could have something to do with the Republican majority because people fear the Republican Congress is going to hurt Social Security and Medicare," Saxe said. "But people tend to forget that the Democratic Congress, before the Republicans came in, was equally low in ratings."

Republican Party chairman Pauken said the ratings show a disenchantment with Congress overall, not with the Republican majority. "It's more of a pox on both houses," he said.

But Democrats say congressional actions, such as last year's budget battle that shut down portions of the federal government, color the public perception of Republicans.

"When (U.S. House Speaker Newt) Gingrich deliberately shut the government down repeatedly for personal purposes, it left a bad taste in people's mouths," said Bill White, Texas Democratic Party chairman.

Republicans are most likely to approve of the job Congress is doing, 45 percent, compared with 28 percent of independents and 21 percent of Democrats.

On the other hand, Clinton's biggest support - 80 percent - comes from Democrats. Forty-seven percent of independents approve of his job performance, as do 19 percent of Republicans.

As for Texas' U.S. senators, 47 percent of Texas approve of Gramm's job performance. Twelve percent say his performance is poor and 30 percent say it's fair. In March, 53 percent of Texans approved of his job performance.

For Hutchison, 49 percent approve and 8 percent disapprove of her job performance. Twenty-nine percent say her performance was only fair and 14 percent didn't know. In March, 57 percent approved.

Gramm's ratings likely dropped because of his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Saxe said.

"Texans didn't like the fact that he ran and lost," Saxe said. "It would be different if he had won. People prefer officials who stay with the state and are, in a way, loyal to the state."

Pauken said Gramm's primary fight drove his negative ratings up.

"We aren't too worried about that," Pauken said. "He's beginning to regain support and is a clear favorite to win" his Senate race against Democratic Party challenger Victor Morales.

Democratic Party Chairman White disagrees.

"Phil Gramm's ratings are dropping off because of his negative ad campaign, which may cause some folks to question Victor Morales," he said, referring to political ads run by the Gramm Senate campaign. "But it also may cause people to lose respect for Phil Gramm."

A Texas Poll last week showed that 50 percent of likely voters would vote for Gramm, compared with 34 percent for Morales.

Hutchison's 8 percent drop in approval ratings isn't as clear cut, political observers say. Possible factors run the gamut from her recent stinging attack on Clinton during the Republican National Convention to not being in the news every day.

Her speech depicted Clinton as a radical liberal who never keeps his word. She said he had "put a former bar bouncer in charge of confidential FBI files." And her segment included video clips of Clinton promising at different times to balance the budget over a period of five, seven, eight, nine or 10 years.

"Hutchison's ratings are hard to figure out," said SMU's Jillson, also director of the John Tower Center for political studies. "Her speech at the convention was variously received. Some people thought it was good, but it was the attack speech of the evening and it was very visible. Some people feeling positive about Clinton would react negatively to her."

Hutchison also isn't in the news much, said Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas.

"She just hasn't been a very high profile figure in and around the state," he said. "And the very fact that she's not in the news much lately caused her to fall from the memory of some people. She's just not on the front pages much."

The poll, conducted Sept. 3-13, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The Office of Survey Research of the University of Texas surveyed 1,001 adult Texans for Harte-Hanks Communications Inc.