Other Crap

GALLUP: State of the Union Speeches Rarely Increase Presidential Support. Despite high hopes, presidential State of the Union addresses have rarely increased a president's public support. The only exception in history was Bill Clinton, who managed to deliver three SOTU speeches which increased his support by an amount greater than the sampling error. No other President has ever accomplished this even once in the quarter century since Gallup started tracking such things. President Bush's ratings were not improved by his three previous speeches, and were actually hurt by his controversial speech last year. The record for the worst impact? President Bush's father made a speech in 1990 that cost him 7 points! (But he was buoyed up by the current events of the time at an astronomical 80 level, and that was bound to decline no matter what he said.)