Free Republic

Before voting was even finished, China's state-run Global Times newspaper was already pretty sure that President Obama would be the source of Democratic failure in the midterm elections. "Obama always utters 'Yes, we can,' which led to the high expectations people had for him. But he has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters," the paper said in an op-ed published Tuesday. "U.S. society has grown tired of his banality." Meanwhile, the Times of London called the results a "vote of no confidence" in the U.S. president, while Channel 4's Kylie Morris said it "feels like an...

Voter dissatisfaction with the White House will have a stronger effect in a half-dozen states when the midterm elections get rolling on Tuesday, this according to a massive Gallup tracking data analysis of some 15,000 people over four months. “In an election in which President Obama’s mediocre approval ratings have cast a shadow on Democrats’ efforts to maintain their slim Senate majority, his image has remained generally weak in six states featuring competitive races,” reports analyst Andrew Dugan. “This includes sub-40 percent approval ratings over the last several months in Iowa (38 percent), Kansas (33 percent) and Arkansas (29 percent)....

THE 2014 midterms have featured many variables and one constant. Whether they’re running as incumbents or challengers, campaigning in blue or red or purple states, Democratic candidates have all been dragging an anchor: a president from their party. So when and how was it lost? When President Bush’s second-term job approval numbers tanked, despite decent-at-the-time economic numbers, the explanation was easy: It was Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. But nothing quite so pat presents itself in Obama’s case, so here are four partial theories instead. He gets blamed for Republican intransigence. This is the explanation that many Obama partisans favor, because it...

... At a time when the Obama administration is lurching from crisis to crisis — a new Cold War in Europe, a brutal Islamic caliphate in the Middle East and a deadly epidemic in West Africa, to name just the most obvious ones — it is not surprising that long-term strategy would take a back seat. But it raises inevitable questions about the ability of the president and his hard-pressed national security team to manage and somehow get ahead of the daily onslaught of events. Early stumbles in the government’s handling of the Ebola crisis as well as its belated...

Pushed Thursday night on whether she would want President Barack Obama to campaign with her as she seeks a second term, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said it doesn’t make sense and Obama is “exactly where he needs to be” — in Washington. “We have a lot going on,” Shaheen said during an hourlong debate with Republican Scott Brown at NH1’s studio in Concord, which was broadcast live on WBIN-TV and was co-sponsored by CNN. “I don’t think it makes sense for the president to come to New Hampshire right now.” Shaheen doesn’t have a shortage of star power coming to...

In the wake of the shootings in Canada, the president said that “it emphasizes the degree to which we have to remain vigilant when it comes to dealing with these kinds of acts of senseless violence or terrorism.” The president has said we must be vigilant many times, but does he follow his own advice? He is among the least vigilant presidents in memory, always learning about scandals in the newspaper and surprised when aggressors act like aggressors. If he is being vigilant, he’s looking out for the wrong things. He should have been paying attention to the geographic spread...

It has been a stunning reversal of fortunes for Mr Obama, whose celebrity status helped get Democrats elected in several Republican states in 2008 – states which the party is now desperately struggling to defend. With less than two weeks to go until the November 4 polling day, we track the travails of the man who once walked on political water. Indeed, so toxic has Mr Obama’s name apparently become that when Ms Lundergan Grimes was asked if she had ever actually voted for Mr Obama, the 35-year-old lawyer declined to answer. The president’s sheen may have faded for the...

When presidents become unpopular, they are no longer welcome on the campaign trail. They're trapped in Washington, watching their party abandon them. Now, the same oppressive walls are closing in on President Barack Obama. He is welcome only in the palatial homes of Hollywood stars and hedge-fund billionaires or the well-kept fairways of Martha's Vineyard. The contrast with 2008 is striking and painful. Six years ago, his acolytes fainted as he read from the teleprompter. What went wrong? Ideology, say the true believers and their staunchest opponents. The left says he compromised too much, desperate to pass his agenda. The...

A devastating new Politico poll reveals voters believe America has spun off its axis and is "out of control." "An overwhelming majority of voters in the most competitive 2014 elections say it feels as if events in the United States are 'out of control' and expressed mounting alarm about terrorism, anxiety about Ebola and harsh skepticism of both political parties only three weeks before the Nov. 4 midterms," reports Politico. The poll, which surveyed states and districts in the most competitive congressional races, found that 64% of Americans believe "things in the U.S. feel like they are out of control...

Pete Spain knew he and his wife would have to find a new health plan for 2015 since their current policy is being discontinued at the end of the year. But the letter explaining it still contained a surprise: Buying a comparable plan next year would cost the Bridgeport couple nearly 58 percent more. “That’s just a bigger hit than we expected,” he said. The Spains are among more than 60,000 Connecticut residents with health plans that don’t meet the requirements of the federal health law. Many of them are receiving notices that their plans are being discontinued and that...

President Barack Obama made a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Sunday with a rally to support the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, though the event was marred somewhat by early departures of crowd members and a yelling heckler. Some 8,000 people turned out for the event, held in a noisy school gymnasium. But a steady stream of people walked out while he spoke, and a heckler interrupted his remarks.

As President Barack Obama heads into the final half of his final term, many of us Americans wonder: Whatever happened to the fresh promise of that cheerfully charismatic optimist who dominated the political stage back in 2008? Some of those who voted for him now say they're sorry they did. Why is the thrill gone? I can think of three big reasons: 1. Public impatience. After six years in office, any president has been seen and heard too many times to satisfy the public's relentless appetite for something fresh and new. 2. An anti-incumbent reflex in news media. The most...

President Obama’s agenda is on the ballot next month. This we know from the president himself. Now we also know where that same president will actually be during the three weeks before Election Day. Barring last-minute additions, he will be nowhere near where the election is actually playing out in the most important manner: the races that will determine control of the Senate. Based on polls, it’s hard to question the decision to relegate Obama to bystander status. The new ABC News-Washington Post poll out today puts the president’s approval rating at a career-low 40 percent; he’s almost certainly nowhere...

President Barack Obama is unlikely to name a new attorney general until after the Nov. 4 elections, and White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler and Solicitor General Don Verrilli are two of the leading candidates for the job, sources close to the White House said.

It was a cloudless Sunday in Arlington, Virginia, and little did the crowd of 1,600 standing inside Washington-Lee High School realize they were witnessing something of a political vanishing act. "Are you fired up?" President Obama asked with characteristic gusto. The date was Nov. 3, 2013. Mr. Obama hasn't been seen in public at a campaign rally since.

The lunch ladies loved Marshall Matz. For more than 30 years, he worked the halls and back rooms of Washington for the 55,000 dues-paying members of the School Nutrition Association, the men and still mostly women who run America’s school-lunch programs. So when Michelle Obama started Let’s Move!, her campaign against child obesity, in 2010, the members of the School Nutrition Association were her natural allies. Today the School Nutrition Association is Washington’s loudest and most public critic of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Even as they claim to support the act, the lunch ladies have become the shock troops...

The new chief executive of HealthCare.gov, Kevin Counihan, is setting expectations really high for the website’s performance during its second year of open enrollment, set to begin in mid-November. But here’s one big hurdle: The site still won’t have any tools to allow consumers to see which doctors and hospitals are covered by individual insurance plans. Plans that limit patients’ choices of doctors and hospitals have turned out to be the signature product of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. That may be a welcome development for cost-conscious consumers, but only if they know what they’re buying. The proliferation of these...

A new poll suggests many New Jersey residents don’t have a lot of confidence in President Obama’s performance in office. That’s the assessment of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. Director Patrick Murray breaks down the numbers: “He’s got a 41-percent approve to 54-percent disapprove rating among the state’s voters. These are the worst numbers that we have ever recorded in our poll for President Obama since he took office in 2009.” Murray suggests one major reason is women: “His rating among women is 45-percent approve to 50-percent disapprove. That’s the first time we’ve ever had more women disapprove than approve...

In an odd coincidence, the last two election cycles have seen a drastic, unexpected drop in the unemployment rate immediately before the election. And in 2012 and 2010, the unemployment rate increased the month or the next after the election. Just as big a coincidence, both 2014 and 2012 saw the drop come in September, but reported in October, the best time to report supposed good news on the economy. This comes on the heels of this election cycle's surprise news that the unemployment rate decreased .2% to 5.9%., a mere two months after the unemployment rose to 6.2%. For...

In an odd coincidence, the last two election cycles have seen a drastic, unexpected drop in the unemployment rate immediately before the election. And in 2012 and 2010, the unemployment rate increased the month or the next after the election. Just as big a coincidence, both 2014 and 2012 saw the drop come in September, but reported in October, the best time to report supposed good news on the economy.