By April 2008, Bush's job approval ratings even among Republicans were down to 66 percent.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/106426/bush-job-approval-28-lowest-administration.aspx That may sound high enough but is very bad given the partisan polarization of the United States, and the reluctance of many partisans to say they disapprove of a president of their own party for fear that this will help the opposite party. Undoubtedly even many of those 66 percent realized the hopelessness of any candidate named Bush in 2008
Bush's number were so high (66% is pretty damn good, at least within your own party) because of his Karl Rove strategy of
feed-the-base, feed-the-base, feed-the-base. His administration was run on a constant "re-election mode" never before seen in American history. Which is why he crashed and burned after the 2006 mid-terms.
With "no more worlds to conquer", he flat out didn't know what to do. He no longer trusted the two people who essentially ran his administration the previous six years, Rove and Cheney. Rove, because of his disastrously bad 2006 election predictions, Cheney because his metaphysical certitude about WMDs in Iraq was so metaphysically wrong.

And he never was a true executive type, much happy he was at campaigning than making decisions, or God Forbid, making peaceful overtures to Al-Qaeda-uh, I mean, the Democrats.
It would have been madness for Republicans to be upset with W in 2008. For 6 years he, and congressional Republicans, had spent like drunken sailors on Republican pet projects, while giving the polite finger to Independents and pretending the Democratic Party didn't even exist. No wonder he spent so much time in Crawford after the second mid-terms. If he couldn't dictate policy, and there were no more elections to campaign for, then he couldn't be bothered to actually run a government.
IIRC, there were polls at the time (2008) putting W's numbers among Independents in the high teens, among Democrats in the high to mid-single digits, and among Black Democrats <1%, putting them
within the margin of error to 0%!
