Actually, Bush's numbers are poor with the public as a whole in the latest CBS News poll, but his numbers with independents suggest particularly serious difficulties with this group of swing voters.

In the poll, Bush's overall approval rating is 47 percent--bad enough, but independents give him only 45 percent approval. Similarly, his approval rating on Iraq is 46 percent, with independents even lower at 45 percent. Even more striking, Bush's approval rating on foreign policy is now down to 44 percent, with 45 percent disapproval, with independents much more negative at 39 percent approval/48 percent disapproval. But even that looks good compared to his ratings on the economy: 37 percent approval/56 percent disapproval among all voters and 33 percent/56 percent among independents.

In terms of the horse race, two questions (Bush vs. generic Democrat and Bush-Cheney vs. Kerry-Edwards) return the same low level of support for Bush among independents (41 percent). On the Bush-Cheney vs. Kerry-Edwards horse race (which Kerry-Edwards wins by a 50 percent to 42 percent margin), it's also interesting to note that Democrats and Republicans are identically polarized: 88 percent to 8 percent for their ticket.

Other noteworthy findings: by 55 percent to 32 percent (55/30 among independents) people believe Bush's decisions are influenced by special interests. At this point, people are much more closely split on Kerry (38/31, and 38/31 among independents).

Also, 67 percent believe that Kerry either cares a lot or some about "the needs and problems of people like yourself", compared to 58 percent for Bush. And, by 53 percent to 14 percent, people believe that Bush's policies have decreased, not increased, the number of jobs in the US (53/11 among independents).

Finally, opinion on the war in Iraq continues to head south. By 52 percent to 42 percent, people say the war was not worth the loss of American life and other costs; by 58 percent to 40 percent, they think that the Iraq threat could have been contained or wasn't a threat at all, rather than that it required immediate military action; and by 59 percent to 32 percent they think Iraq WMD intelligence was exaggerated to build support for the war.