Washington ? Have you ever been a participant in a poll? Typically, an employee from a phone bank calls and asks a series of questions, expecting to get your opinion on the spot without the benefit of contemplation, research or discussion. The result is a thoughtless response poll.

Interestingly, more thought does go into negative responses than positive responses. This is because people are more inclined to react positively or at least lean in that direction if they have not thought through the question. There is a natural predilection to be positive. Negative responses, however, tend to be developed over time. In other words, we are apparently born positive and made negative only by developments.

This is probably why politicians hawk their high approval ratings but pay most attention to negative ratings.

For example, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, is up for re-election this fall, and he leads the competing Democratic contenders including Pres. Bill Clinton’s Atty. Gen. Janet Reno in the polling. But what worries political insiders are his negatives. In October 1999, he had a 59 percent approval rating and a 16 percent disapproval rating. Today, the figures are 56 percent approval nearly the same as 1999 but an alarming 35 percent negative rating.

Nothing scares political consultants more than rising negatives. And the scary numbers from President George W. Bush are not in his overall approval rating, which hovers around 80 percent, but in his Middle East rating. A Zogby poll conducted in April gave the president a 54 percent positive rating for his handling of the Middle East crisis, but a disappointing 44 percent negative rating.

Is this a precursor of disapproval ratings in other areas? Sources tell us that it is enough to worry the president’s advisers because it was not a poll on Middle East biases or leanings, but rather upon his ability to manage the crisis.

The president seemed to give Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a greenlight to fight terrorists there as we are fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and The Philippines. Then, he suddenly turned and demanded that the Israelis pull out of the West Bank Palestinian towns forthwith. Then, he backed off of that stance.

He seemed confused, and the public became confused, resulting in rising negatives in the polling. But the news media concentrates on the president’s approval rating just as it did with his father, President George H. W. Bush, whose approval ratings were in the 90 percent range after success in the 1991 Gulf War. A year later he was defeated by the relatively unknown Bill Clinton.

So, while the public is fed polling pabulum, the consultants are busy with damage-control efforts to shore up those rising negatives. They know too well how easily positives fall and negatives do not.