Even before his latest proposal, Bush was perceived by 51 percent of Americans as favoring the rich, according to a Gallup poll for CNN and USA Today completed Jan. 5. Forty-one percent said he was fair to all, an improvement over his father's 27 percent rating when the same question was asked during the elder Bush's losing presidential campaign of 1992.
"This president has established a different reputation than his father, and class warfare won't play as well against him," said Karlyn Bowman, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group, and a co-author of the 1998 book Attitudes toward income inequality.
"I've looked at four decades of polls, and I see no erosion in the belief that opportunity is present for those who are willing to work," Bowman said.
"Class warfare has the possibility to resonate when times are really tough, but I don't sense it has that much intensity right now."
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