Approval rating is double that of Congress; fact that statistic is largely meaningless gets ignored.
Washington, DC: In a recent poll of registered voters who own home phones, happen to be home in the evenings between Thursday and Sunday, were likely to vote in the next election, and spoke passable English, President Bush scored a 2% approval rating. While not an overwhelming statistic, the White House helpfully pointed out that the same poll gave an overall Congressional approval rating of 1%. Press Secretary Tony Snow, speaking from an undisclosed location known only to the President and Fox News, said, “This is obviously a mandate from the American people. They demand that Democrats in Congress put aside their ideas and get in line with what the President is doing. Whenever he figures out something to do other than shoot down Congress’ ideas.”
However, Democrats on Capitol Hill were quick to respond. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi countered, “Polls are irrelevant. Unless they happen to support your agenda, that is. And since this one doesn’t, it’s time to ask President Bush to do something about Iraq… since we’re not interested in committing political suicide by doing anything ourselves.” When asked to elaborate, Speaker Pelosi stated that she did not have time, as she had to get on her private jet to California. She did not want to waste any of her taxpayer-funded summer break, which lasts from now until approximately the end of the year.
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) did take time to elaborate while attending an Ani DiFranco concert. “Polls don’t really matter. Look at me. I keep running for President, even though voters indicate that they would rather elect a rabid badger,” he shouted from stage, drawing a roar of approval from the fans. (Afterwards, it was realized that the applause was either for Ani or because a dealer showed up with three pounds of high-grade marijuana, rather than anything Kucinich said.)
As the two parties squabbled over who was cooler in the eyes of the voters, Libertarians have come out the woodwork pointing out that they are a viable option. Politicians running under the banner of “Hey, one step from anarchy isn’t so bad” are touring the country spreading their voice. They drive their tour buses on tax-funded highways and give speeches on public grounds paid for by taxes to discuss the evils and unfairness of the current tax system. The current pseudo-libertarian-du-jour, Ron Paul, running on the “seriously, I’m TOTALLY different than McCain was in 2000” ticket, is trying to draw disillusioned Democrats with his laissez-faire approach to social issues and revolted Republicans with his cut-rate thoughts on bureaucracy. 
Voters remain unconvinced, however. After watching Democratic Presidential candidates field questions from talking snowmen on Youtube and hearing Republicans point out each other’s flaws (“you’re too liberal” and “you’re too Mormon” seem to the current themes), voters have thrown their hands up in the air like they just don’t care. A head-to-head-to-head comparison of all 27 billion candidates currently vying for their parties’ nominations found that the runaway winner, with 87% of the votes, is “Hell if I know.”
With states leapfrogging each other to get their primaries earlier on the calendar (because each state wants to prove that they have the biggest caucus), voters are left with not much time to figure out which option is the least distasteful.