OK, since I’ve brought up the polls when Bush is down, it’s only fair to bring up the polls when Bush is up…

Shifting into campaign mode to reverse his slide in public opinion polls, Bush has boosted his support among key constituency groups — particularly in the Northeast and West — on his handling of Iraq and the economy, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

Bush improved his job approval rating from 37 percent in November to 42 percent now, though his standing with the public remains relatively low. Fifty-seven percent still disapprove, down from 61.

Ain’t it sad to see your ratings go up by 5%, and still you’re disapproved of by more than half the country?

Those factors combined with Iraq and the price of gasoline hitting $3 a gallon left the president with the lowest public support of his presidency from September through November.

Now, gas prices have eased, and Bush has been barnstorming the country to tout a stronger economy and claim progress in Iraq.

A recent report noted that the nation added 215,000 jobs in November, and Bush declared on Monday that “the best days are yet to come for the American economy.”

Absolutely, because you’ll be gone in 1,138 days. (By the way, I think 215,000 more jobs is fabulous. How much closer does that put us, then, to the number of jobs we had before you took office? And how is that median family income coming along, or number of families below the poverty level. Somehow, if I headed a single-income family and lost my $60K manufacturing job, but my wife and I were able to secure two of these new $25K Wal-McJobs, I wouldn’t be cheering.)

I think one of the scarier aspects of these polls seeing how closely they are tied to the price of gasoline. Yeah, sure, he supports torture, the end of the separation of church and state, second-class citizenship for gays, getting 2,100 soldiers killed for his lies, fraudulent elections, government-enforced procreation laws, spending our grandchildren into gargantuan deficit, cutting services for the poorest among us in favor of tax cuts for the wealthiest, defending traitors and incompetants in his administration, leaving the poor to fend for themselves after natural disasters, and did I mention the torture? But the artifically-inflated big-oil-collusion fixed price of gas is now only 67¢ higher (avg. $2.127 nationwide, 12/5/05) than it was when he took office (avg. $1.456 1/22/01), and that moves the poll 5 points? By comparison, Clinton’s gallon of gas cost $1.055 on 1/25/03, meaning that in eight years, the price of a gallon of gas rose only 40¢ over that eight year period. No wonder Big Dog’s approval ratings were so high!

Certainly the gas prices can’t be the only thing that moves the poll. The public’s short attention span may also be to blame. The pictures from Katrina have faded from memory, that 2,000th dead soldier is a milepost long since passed, and Fitzgerald has gone back into investigatory hibernation. C’mon, Karl, there must be a way to get Chimpy back above 50%. Aren’t there some decorated / paraplegic / former POW Vietnam vets or marryin’ queers to smear and denigrate? Hey, we haven’t had an Orange Alert in some time…