Arch-contrarian spin: Could Bush be a secret winner (or at least not complete loser) of the seeming failure of the "grand bargain"? Though he seemed to want the "grand bargain" very badly and stories have focused on how this failure puts him in hardcore "lame-duck" territory, Rasmussen now has his job approval at 38%, and his disapproval is now at 60%. April was the last month where the president averaged under 60% disapproval, and April was the last month before the "grand bargain" was introduced. In the midst of the immigration fight, the president usually hung around in the 33-34% approval range, so 38% is a somewhat significant increase. Other than the failure of the "grand bargain" what else could have led to this increase? A lot of people wouldn't say the Libby commutation...Rasmussen always did say the Bush's numbers dropped when he pushed the immigration issue...of course, we'll need some more polls to see if this is a real trend or not. And maybe increased poll numbers don't make you a winner anyways...