The power of the POTUS to get his message out and the fact that Os strategy is to offer most voters what appears to be free stuff (much like GWB) at the cost of national debt, and Rs goal is to take away the free stuff.
O has definitely the easiest job there.
Voters hate national debt in the abstract but they hate losing stuff or paying more in taxes even more than debt , they mainly hate debt only because it mean future pain, but they see that as better than near term pain.
Yesterday I got an angry reply for posting that O is liked compared to GOP.
Of course Obama is liked more, he's playing Santa Claus. The Democrats have a much easier sales job. They're offering free stuff to a public that increasingly has no idea how free markets work, what made America great, etc. And sadly, Obama is a very skilled orator and a majority of Americans not only like him, but they WANT to keep liking him. There is a majority in this country that is liable to support Obama almost no matter what he does (assuming their freebies keep coming in).
This country is in a spiral downward and it is characterized by the majority voting for what they want, not what they need. Until the Republicans can find a way to change the dynamics, we are constantly fighting an uphill battle. The bad news is the fix will probably be painfully slow (assuming the economy doesn't just collapse or something). The real hard work is going to be competing with the left in academia, the media, the entertainment establishment, etc. We are going to have to make identity politics work for us instead of just letting the Democrats use it to club our political skulls in. Conservatives are going to have to make a point of fighting the left on every front ALL of our lives - not just when we get older and upset at something government does to screw up our business. We need to realize the left is in a permanent political war with traditional values, conservative ideals, etc. We need to fight that war ALL the time.