A substantial majority (55%) of the American journalists who followed the 1992 presidential campaign believe that George Bush’s candidacy was damaged by the way the press covered him. Only 11% feel that Gov. Bill Clinton’s campaign was harmed by the way the press covered his drive to the presidency. Moreover, one out of three journalists (36%) think that media coverage helped the Arkansan win the presidency while a mere 3% believed that the press coverage helped the Bush effort.

While the eyes of Washington have been focused on the presidential primaries, most Americans have paid much more attention to the Mike Tyson rape trial, the Winter Olympics, and reports about the U.S. economy.

With the State of the Union Address days away, a majority of the American people (52 percent) want President George Bush to call for a public works program to put the unemployed back to work as their first choice to revitalize the economy. President Bush’s job approval rating continues to drop (46%) as he fails, thus far, to convince the American public that he is doing all he can to improve the economy. The Republican party’s image is also being hurt by the current climate of opinion. Recent efforts notwithstanding, fully 76% of the public thinks the President could be doing more to improve economic conditions, while only 21% think he is doing as much as he can. Even a 64% majority of Republicans think the President is not doing enough to mend the economy.

Dissatisfaction with the way things are going in the country has now reached pre-Reagan economic recovery levels with over six in ten expressing fundamental discontent with the country’s course. Yet the President’s rating at 55% approve, 33% disapprove is at least as good if not better than that of recent GOP predecessors who went on to win big second term victories. In November of 1971, Nixon’s approval/disapproval score in the Gallup Poll was 49% to 37% and in November 1983, Reagan’s was 53% to 37%.

A survey by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press finds a public far more interested in the state of the economy than in any other potential issue in the 1992 presidential campaign. Voters say they want to hear more about where presidential candidates stand on issues than they have in past campaigns, and 66% of them say the economy is the issue they want discussed. Eighty percent of those polled by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press respond that in 1992 they would like to see more media coverage of presidential candidates discussing their positions on issues, and the “overall condition of the economy” was the individual topic most frequently cited (43%), followed by unemployment (15%), and the budget deficit (8%). Education (11%), abortion (10%), health care (8%) and homelessness (8%) were other frequently cited domestic issues. Overall, 83% of Times Mirror’s respondents cited domestic issues, compared to only 15% who named international issues.

As the debate about the federal budget rages and the prospect of higher gasoline taxes looms, George Bush’s standing with the public has fallen dramatically. The latest nationwide poll by the Times Mirror Center for The People & The Press finds the President’s approval ratings down 13 percentage points in less than one month. In a survey completed this past weekend 55% approved of the way Bush is handling his job as President and 28% disapproved. In September, the President’s approval rating stood at 68% and in August it was 76% in Times Mirror opinion surveys.

Americans paid a lot of attention to George Bush recently when he changed his mind about taxes, but few have changed their minds about him as a consequence. Bush’s reversal on taxes was the most closely followed story in June with 30% of the public saying they followed this story very closely. The same Times Mirror survey found 64% of the public approving of the way the President Bush has been handling his job — a rating that is statistically equal to the results of a Times Mirror nationwide survey in late May – early June which measured the president’s popularity.

As George Bush completes his first year in the White House, he is far more popular than Ronald Reagan was eight years ago, but the American public doesn’t think so; and that perception may prove to be as important to the President as his actual standing in the opinion polls.