Guy calls up and asks me if I approve of how the president is doing (canvasser).  I say something like I'm not paying attention to that stuff, sorry, and then hang up on him.  haha.

I don't like the word 'approve', put me down as 'not sure', fine.  Then I wondered if they ask it that way, and people think "G no!" when they hear of 'Approve'.  Well, I hope that not saying approve is not then taken to mean 'dissaprove'. 

This is curious because it comes up from time to time.  Bush's "approve"al rating was rather low some months before he got re-elected.  No approval does not equal dissaproval.

Of course, I voted against him the second time, so I was disapproving at that time, which makes it more awkward to not disapprove now.

Interesting. I guess the idea is you approve of somethings and not of others and so didn't want to get cornered into a blanket statement.

The syntax is tortuous, but am I to understand that you're not sure if you approve or disaprove of the president's performance?

"Interesting. I guess the idea is you approve of somethings and not of others and so didn't want to get cornered into a blanket statement."

Exactly.  And my answer to Bob is I believe his first term scr#wed it for his second term (Bush's fault, disapprove, yes).  The time for disapproving and electing Kerry was two years ago.  There are two more years to go, what's the sense in complaining now?  It's like people knew what they were getting already.