adrean8j said:
When he left office his approval rating was something like 74 or 78%, the highest ever for a outgoing, living president. If we allowed Presidents to serve more than two terms he would have definitely won hands down!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/07/opinion/polls/main621632.shtml
(CBS) This poll was originally written in 1989 by Martin Plissner, Executive Political Director, CBS News. It was updated by CBS News in June, 2004
GOING OUT POPULAR
Ronald Reagan’s presidency ended at a high level of public approval, matched only by that of Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt among modern presidents, and at about the highest level during his own unusually popular terms of office. ...
In achieving this exceptionally high approval rate at the close of his second term in office, Reagan once again recovered from a deep mid-term slump. From a 67 percent to 18 percent margin of approval in April 1981, soon after he survived an assassination attempt, Reagan went through a period from March, 1982 through April, 1983, when his approval and disapproval were just about even. That, of course, was during the steep depression which preceded the long period of economic expansion that occurred during much of the 1980s.
By Election Day, 1984, Reagan’s popularity had rebounded to 58 percent, enough to carry 49 states, but by March of 1987, Iran-Contra had reduced it once again to a virtually even split between approval and disapproval. As late as November 1987, only 45 percent of Americans approved of Reagan’s handling of his job, while 44 percent disapproved. It was at this time polls showed more Americans, given a choice between a Republican and Democratic President, picked the Democrat.
The completion of an arms control treaty with the Soviet Union and other signs of a warming trend in East-West relations during 1988 combined with continued prosperity to restore Reagan’s popularity to almost its peak level during 1988 and undoubtedly contributed to the election of his chosen successor, George H. W. Bush.
As he left office in 1989, Americans who approved of his job performance gave domestic, not foreign policy reasons why felt that way. The most often-cited reasons credited Reagan for boosting the economy, creating more jobs, or the general sense that "things had gotten better" since he came into office.
RETROSPECTIVE EVALUATIONS
President Reagan left office with very high approval ratings, and those ratings stayed high as Americans looked back on his Oval Office tenure long after he had left it. Looking back on the Reagan years in August of 1996, two years after Reagan had told the world of his battle with Alzheimer’s, nearly two-thirds of Americans approved of the job he had done over his two terms.
LOOKING BACK ON REAGAN'S JOB PERFORMANCE IN AUGUST, 1996:
Approve 62%
Disapprove 30%
IN PAST EIGHT YEARS… (1/1989)
Military
Gotten better 43%
Gotten worse 9%
Economy
Gotten better 40%
Gotten worse 23%
Education
Gotten better 21%
Gotten worse 39%
Poverty
Gotten better 14%
Gotten worse 48%
Environment
Gotten better 13%
Gotten worse 43%
Ethics in Government
Gotten better 8%
Gotten worse 33%
Crime
Gotten better 4%
Gotten worse 71%
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