Posted on 07/22/2009 12:30:43 AM PDT by libh8er
Having come into office with an ambitious agenda to remake America, Barack Obama is discovering that time is not his friend. According to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, Obama's approval rating has dropped by nine points, down to 55 percent from where it was when he first entered the White House six months ago.
On its own, a nine-point drop over that period of time does not seem like a cause for much concern, especially when a majority of the country continues to approve of the job he is doing. But there are plenty of warning signs within the data, on its own and measured against other presidencies.
A 55 percent approval rating at this point in time puts him in 10th place over all among presidents who have served since Gallup began tracking presidential approval and disapproval in the 1940s. He is less popular than both Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush were at the same period—and they both lost their bids for a second term.
On the other hand, as Gallup points out in its analysis of the data, Obama is more popular now than two-term President Bill Clinton was six months into his administration. But Clinton was a minority president; even though he won the White House twice it was never with a majority of the popular vote. So he didn't have as far to fall as Obama does.
The decline in Obama's job approval number is matched, overmatched really, by a significant increase in the number of people who disapprove of the job he is doing as president. That number is up 16 points—to 41 percent—from the first time the survey was taken during the Obama presidency.
The six-month mark, as USA Today ' s Susan Page explains in her story on the poll, is not "a particularly good indicator of how a president will ultimately fare." But it does say a lot about the prospects for success where his legislative agenda is concerned. From almost the start, Obama the person has polled better than the Obama agenda has. Which means his personal popularity is a central factor in his success, or lack thereof, especially on Capitol Hill.
This is probably the reason he has chosen to take on a first-term Republican United States senator in the debate over healthcare. In political terms, it is somewhat remarkable that Obama has lowered himself to address comments by South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who suggested that the healthcare legislation, if it could be defeated, would be Obama's "Waterloo."
By responding to DeMint, Obama made him his political equal, at least for the time being. It also allowed him to personalize the debate over healthcare, even as the president protested that "It's not about me." If healthcare is about Obama, as opposed to being about healthcare, it stands a slightly better chance of passing in the House and the Senate.
The decline in Obama's approval numbers is being driven by a lack of confidence in the way he is handling four key domestic issues: the economy, taxes, the aforementioned healthcare, and the federal budget deficit. And, says Gallup, "The biggest drop has been on his handling of the economy, down 12 points since February; his disapproval is up 19 points."
More to the point, the people who are flipping are conservative and moderate Democrats, whose support is down 18 percent. Which is probably what emboldened the so-called blue dog Democrats in the House to resist the push to get healthcare done quickly once everyone figured out how much the Obama-backed tri-committee proposal would cost and what it would do to the deficit.
The lower Obama's numbers go the harder its going to be to keep moderate Democrats worried about being re-elected in 2010 on the reservation. And the harder it will be for Obama to remake America.
This is good vs. evil and probably America's last chance.
And that, as Martha Stewart would say, is a very good thing.
Obama keeps on dropping at this rate, by 2010, he shall have no coattails to keep the House in 2010, and be in single digits by 2012, making it highly unlikely there would be a second term, and maybe even gaining back the Senate then, in addition to the House.
In a sane world, anyway.
But who knows if sufficient numbers of Americans may be considered sane by then.
I am still in favor of breaking what is now the “Untied States of America” into a “Red country” and a “Blue Country”. The nearly contiguous “Red country” would have a number of isolated islands making up the “Blue country” scattered all through its territory.
The emergence of these two entities may come at a terrible price. But the world would be the better for the struggle to have taken place.
If we subtract the African-American support for Obama, which will never, ever change, and the numbers become even starker. 12% of the population, African-Americans voted better than 95% for Obama. Thus, 10% of his vote came from African-Americans and that puts them somewhere between a quarter and a third of his support within the Democratic Party.
Every time Obama's support moves down 100 basis points, it means 110 of the non-African-American electorate is defecting. How many of them are Hispanics?
The more the percentage of Obama support is centered in the African-American demographic, the more it will be recognized as such and the more it will begin to reverse the dynamic in which race put Obama in the White House.
The America people got a big nasty dose of liberalism.
I hope Hussein takes all the liberals down with him.
The population may be shifting back to their pre-2006 voting patterns. To early to say. What concerns me, however, is the GOP has done a rotten job of recruiting strong candidates.
I think when the smoke clears and the media fed Obama hysteria completely dies down, we will go back to being a 52-48 nation. In fact I would say there would be a bigger realignment in favor of conservatives than existed during the Bush years.
For example, here in Illinois, Republican Mark Kirk has announced to run for the Obama-Burris Senate seat. The Illinois Democrat party must be opening champagne bottles as I post this.
His cap and tax vote will hang from his neck like an albatross. The Dems could probably run Burris and still win the seat.
Fixed it!
A lot of whites who voted for BO because it would mean they were really, really enlightened and politically correct are having a private WTF moment about now. They will not, for the most part, admit it to pollsters yet. His numbers are a lot worse than they appear to be, you can sense it.
Since my thesis is that Obama won because of Shelby Steele's insight that Obama exploited white guilt over slavery and segregation, as the people fall away from Obama, his party and Obama himself run the risk of being a polarizing racial party as those white and Hispanic defectors rue their good nature.
It is hard to judge the quality of Republican challengers in this media environment. I'm not happy with our offerings for the Senate in Illinois, Delaware, and Florida to name just three off the top of my head. But these are Senate races with some prominence, I would wager that most of us know very little about House races.
On election day: “We’re bringing Hope and Change.”
Six months later: “I Hope things Change.”
Next year, we’ll all be saying: “I Hope I can find some Change in my pockets.”
...reminded me of this sign:
What are you smokin’?
We are ONE country... UNITED... always will be. I don’t underestimate the spirit of the American people. It’s still alive... I see and hear it every day.
You are obviously right. I don't understand but at least recognize the desire some people had to vote for obama once out of white guilt. I wonder whether they feel any need to reelect the socialist or they're done making up for things that people who look like their great-grandparents did.
I had a nice chat the other day with an old friend in Chicago who voted for Bozobama simply because he hated Bush. He's your classic white boy business man and he was complaining hard about the stuff coming out of Washington. He may still like Obama publicly, but he's learning the hard way about voting negatively.
The numbers are probably worse than they show because more people are switching from the Dems and the polls have not reflected this yet.
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