Dem poll: Doubts in Obama policies

The Hill ^ | 12/1/09 | Ian Swanson

[NormsRevenge]

A new survey from Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville finds voters are “pretty uncertain” that President Barack Obama’s policies will work and believe by a narrow margin that Republicans would do a better job on the economy.

Carville and Greenberg do not foresee a wave election in 2010 that would return Republicans to congressional majorities, partly because the GOP itself remains damaged from public ill will toward the last Republican Congress and former President George W. Bush.

More respondents hold Bush than Obama responsible for the economy and the budget deficit, according to the survey.

Still, the findings illustrate the difficult headwinds Democrats face in next year’s elections, and the longtime strategists predict losses next November for Democrats, largely because a majority of the public believes the nation is seriously off track.

By 50 to 44 percent, voters say Obama has run up a deficit while failing to end the recession or slow job losses rather than help avert an even worse crisis and lay the foundation for eventual recovery, according to the survey by Democracy Corps, a nonprofit founded by Carville and Greenberg.

The chief problem for Democrats is the 10.2 percent unemployment rate, which is more likely to grow than fall over the next several months. The Bureau of Labor will offer the latest jobs report on Friday.

The answer is to focus on jobs, according to the Democracy Corps survey.

“For Democrats to reverse the slide in their standing, they need to focus with urgency on jobs,” it states.

Democrats appear to have received the message. Obama will host a jobs summit at the White House on Thursday, and the House and Senate are both making plans to move jobs bills as soon as possible.

Fifty-eight percent of those responding to the survey said they are much less likely to vote for their incumbent House member if unemployment is above 10 percent next fall and not declining. That’s a higher percentage than those who would be less likely to vote for their incumbent because of a high budget deficit, a drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average or falling home prices.

Respondents by more than a two-to-one margin rated unemployment as the most important economic problem over the budget deficit.

Repeating an argument that liberals have harped on this year, Carville and Greenberg said deficits don’t matter as much as jobs — at least for now.

“Voters put a high priority on both jobs and the deficit, but if forced to choose, they want jobs,” the survey concludes.

The priority for Democrats “has to be jobs, though voters, particularly independents, also want to see a credible commitment to reduced spending and deficits — even if it takes a year to kick in after a jobs package.”

Short memories

The political left increasingly is showing its unhappiness with Obama’s economic team, but that has only extended so far in the Senate.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said the problem is that the press, public and members of Congress have short memories of last fall’s financial crisis. That’s when a Democratic Congress joined with former President George W. Bush in moving forward with a $700 billion bailout of the financial system.

“They forget what kind of situation our country was in, and the fact that both Democrats and Republicans recognized there were no good ways to get out of it, just less bad ones,” said Leahy, one of the Senate’s more liberal members.

Leahy said he believes Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is working hard and did not criticize his actions.

Neither did Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who said the important thing now is to ensure that Obama has the economic team he needs to work through the tough times. He said there will be plenty of time going forward to evaluate the administration’s performance.

Liberals on Tuesday targeted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, saying he should provide more information on loans the Fed provided to central banks in Europe.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal interest group, set up a StopBailoutBen.com website and invited visitors to sign a petition calling on the Senate to reject Bernanke’s reappointment if he does not provide more information on what the Fed does with its funds.

The attack on Bernanke follows heavy criticism from the left on Geithner. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said there is a growing consensus among House liberals that Geithner should be fired, and he also criticized Obama’s chief economic adviser, Larry Summers.

In an article headlined “Geithner must go” on Tuesday, Brent Budowsky, a columnist for The Hill and former aide to Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas), said Geithner has been the most “disastrous president of the New York Fed in history.”

The attacks on Geithner and Bernanke are also attacks on Obama, who handpicked Geithner and has nominated Bernanke to another term.

Political pundit Paul Begala said the tensions with the left are a worry, but pointed at failed Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds as a poster boy for why candidates in 2010 should not run from Obama.

“Virginia should have taught Democrats a lot,” he said.

[Nervous Tick]

>> voters are “pretty uncertain” that President Barack Obama’s policies will work

LOL!

But... Bambi’s policies are really *thoughtful*. So they get Style Points.

And if you watch enough teevee, you know that “actually works” is GREATLY inferior to “has Style”.

[bigbob]

And this is before he punted on Afghanistan tonight. The far left is sinking into despair and the Independents and moderates are finally seeing that Change ain’t always what they thought it would be.

It would have been a hoot to have Dr. Frank Luntz wire up a group of the cadets at tonights speech to his little boxes...I’ll bet they’d have twisted the knobs clear off!

[lonestar67]

I will take this moment to again complain about the sloppy arguments conservatives have made allowing Bush to be painted with the same broad brush as Obama.

The perfect case is the bailout.

There were two bailouts: one by Bush at the end of his term and one by Obama at the beginning of is.

The differences are stark. Bush bailout:

1. Had a specific purpose and target which was the relief of massive collapsing financial banking structures in the United States.
2. Lead to Bush stopping the spending at the halfway mark— means that 350 billion of the 700 billion was spent.
3. The program was actually acutarially monitored.
4. Many banks quickly paid back the loans.
5. The payback required a five percent interest for taxpayers.

Obama bailout:

1. Has no known upper limit but exceeds the 800 billion spent by Bush
2. Had many political paybacks for groups such as ACORN and diffuse burrowed political targets that no one can clearly identify
3. Had no payback provisions and none of it has been paid back or ever will be paid back.
4. Has no observable economic benefit such as restored banks or stress test results on financial institutions.

At a broader level, the spending of Bush versus Obama is exponentially different and should not be portrayed as “the same.”

Additionally, at the apex of his power, January 2007 prior to the installment of the Democratic Congress Bush had delivered the nation a 4.7% unemployment rate, a winning Iraq surge policy under Petraus repudiating the unpatriotic anti war movement, a policy that would erase the deficit by 2009.

Obama was right in 2009 when he said he inheirited these problems— but he missed the source— the Democratic Congress of 2009 that unleashed banking madness.

Playing the Republicans = Dems to appease independents has been a mistaken strategy.

Bush definitely deserved better defense as a conservative.

[kabar]

Bush definitely deserved better defense as a conservative

Bush was not a conservative President. He signed on to the biggest expansion to our entitlement programs since Medicare, i.e., the prescription drug program, which represents an unfunded liability of $8 trillion.

He supported an amnesty, which would have cost $2.6 trillion and destroyed this country with the stroke of a pen.

He signed McCain-Feingold which limited political free speech.

He doubled the size of the Department of Education budget.

[lonestar67]

Bush was a conservative President:

1. He appointed two conservative Pro Life Supreme Court Justices.
2. He won two Presidential elections arguing for conservative values and defending conservative values.
3. He lead, fought, and won multiple wars for the good name of the nation and the defense of her citizens.
4. He limited the growth of government spending more than any other other Republican or Conservative President in modern history— including Reagan.
5. He placed limits and constraints on education spending by initiating a key conservative component of public education that returned power over education to parents of children.
6. Reagan did not merely support amnesty— he did amnesty— and it did not destroy the Country.
7. Bush prevented death panels for Veterans in health care.
8. Bush limited abortion practices in a variety of settings.
9. Bush saved millions of human lives by advocating abstinence and other conservative values on the continent of Africa.
10. Bush appointed John Bolton.
11. Bush appointed Dick Cheney as VP.
12. Bush saved the MOST ungrateful nation in human history from impending annihilation by WMD. The range of concerted action including PSI, diplomacy, covert military operations, wars, internal security, creative detentions, assertive interrogations, all left the essential political storehouse of conservatism— America- intact and not laying under radioactive or chemically bleached rubble.

[Rembrandt]

The second envelope in the trilogy is “re-organize;” the third is to make up three envelopes.

[hsalaw]

Political pundit Paul Begala said the tensions with the left are a worry, but pointed at failed Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds as a poster boy for why candidates in 2010 should not run from Obama

If you look up "deluded" in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of Begala.

[DB]

Do you remember Bush saying something to the effect that he abandon capitalism to save it?

What more do you need to know?

[JohnQ1]

Hey, come on! You know Carville and Greenberg’s Democracy Corps crafted a sterling, objective, totally unbiased set of questions for their poll/survey/pep rally/whatever....

[TheThinker]

Do you remember Bush saying something to the effect that he abandon capitalism to save it?

It was a dumb thing to say. These banks steeped in regulations that made them unwilling partners in a welfare program, were in trouble and will be again.

Bush did bail them out in the only way he could and that was to pay their debts that they unwillingly incurred only because of Congress.

If Bush hadn't signed the bailout and the banks failed and we slid into depression that may have spelled the end of the Republican Party.

I don't think any political party could survive two Herbert Hoovers.

All that said, he was no champion of small government by any stretch of the imagination. He also didn't hesitate to dabble in socialism.

He also allowed our borders to remain porous which undermines our nat'l security in a profound way.

[LS]

When serpent head is sounding the alarm bell, you know there are problems.

[kabar]

2. He won two Presidential elections arguing for conservative values and defending conservative values.

The problem is that his actions did not comport with his words. He doubled the US publicly held national debt.

3. He lead, fought, and won multiple wars for the good name of the nation and the defense of her citizens.

The jury is still out on Afghanistan. And I would expect nothing less from a President, conservative or otherwise. We were attacked on our home soil.

4. He limited the growth of government spending more than any other other Republican or Conservative

That simply is not so. During his eight years in office, President Bush oversaw a large increase in government spending. In fact, President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ. In his last term in office, President Bush increased discretionary outlays by an estimated 48.6 percent.

During his eight years in office, President Bush spent almost twice as much as his predecessor, President Clinton. Adjusted for inflation, in eight years, President Clinton increased the federal budget by 11 percent. In eight years, President Bush increased it by a whopping 104 percent.

President Bush added thousands of new federal subsidy programs during his eight years in office. In 2008, there were 1,816 subsidy programs in the federal budget that spread hundreds of billions of dollars annually to special interest groups such as state governments, businesses, nonprofit groups, and individuals. The number of subsidy programs has grown by 30 percent since 2000 and by 54 percent since 1990.

5. He placed limits and constraints on education spending by initiating a key conservative component of public education that returned power over education to parents of children.

Working with Teddy Kennedy he doubled the size of the federal budget for education and got the federal government more involved with local education with his no child left behind program.

6. Reagan did not merely support amnesty— he did amnesty— and it did not destroy the Country.

The 1986 "one-time" amnesty was a mistake. Ed Meese calls it a mistake and didn't solve the illegal alien problem; it, unfortunately, exacerbated it. The government estimated that 1 million would apply for amnesty and the true number turned out to be 2.7 million. We now have 12 to 20 million illegal aliens. Amnesty didn't work.

The Heritage Foundation concluded that the cost of amnesty alone would be $2.6 trillion. And the number of additional LEGAL immigrants who would join those who were the recipients of amnesty through chain migration, i.e., family reunification, would approach 70 million over a 20-year period, assuming there are only 12 million illegal aliens. We cannot assimilate such numbers. An amnesty would destroy the United States of America with the stroke of a pen.

12. Bush saved the MOST ungrateful nation in human history from impending annihilation by WMD. The range of concerted action including PSI, diplomacy, covert military operations, wars, internal security, creative detentions, assertive interrogations, all left the essential political storehouse of conservatism— America- intact and not laying under radioactive or chemically bleached rubble.

MOST Ungrateful nation? Give me a break. Did Bush do this alone or did some of those ungrateful people do the dying and risking of limb to achieve those results? Or spending countless hours fighting the enemy whether a bureaucrat or a soldier? Let's stop this idolotry and deification of Bush. The bottom line is that he was not a conservative. His record is quite clear on that point.

[MrB]

I take issue with one of the assertions/assumptions that everyone makes when writing articles like this.

The majority of 0bama’s core constituency does NOT want jobs.

[NormsRevenge]

When serpent head is sounding the alarm bell, you know there are problems.

—

yup, the forehead and pat caudill agree. :-)

paging eleanor clift.. eleanor clift.. comment? lol

[LS]

What did Eleanor say?

[NormsRevenge]

Buchanan was butting heads with her over global warming or such, you know how excitable she is.. insert any number of vacuous remarks she has made in the past. :-)

[lonestar67]

Let’s stop the deification of Bush?! Please point me to that location in any universe. Bush is the most hated man on the planet short of Ariel Sharon.

Reagan exponentially exploded the budget and violated all the budget trickery “biggest ever” games you are playing . Every sequential President includiing Obam is now “the biggest spender ever.” It is an utterly meaningless argument and now rather transparent as Obama spends more than Bush at an exponential rate. Bush is easily relatively conservative to Obama but you keep playing the shutdown the govt perspective which has empirically failed and increased liberal power over government.

Bush won those wars and the fact that radical statists are always prepared to take over any country we leave militarily means absolutely nothing to me. The cockroaches scurry away as soon as we turn the light on. They have no military prominence of staying power. Bush had lower net increases in budget discretionary spending than Clinton. You are data mining to spin alternatives. Clinton had zero interest in ending big government until conservatives like Bush took over in Congress.

As your post makes clear, Bush did do these things in essential political solitude. Suffering 30% approval for much of his final two years, he made the hard choices against his own party trying to pull him out and admit failure in Iraq. The consequences would have been Vietnam exponential. Refusing to give in even when Conservatives delighted in staying home November 2007 to hand Congress over constitued a supreme act of political heroism. Bush reactionaries of all stripes have an irrational BDS that even as Obama continues to clarify what 2007 and 2008 meant in terms of Bush Hate. Bush hate has produced ALL of the current economic downturn and ALL of the international collapse being implemented by Obama.

I am in many ways thrilled that Obama has three more years to help you confess how conservative Bush was. If you think Bush was liberal then you still have not seen nothing yet.

If Bush is not conservative then Reagan is definitely not a conservative. Reagan would not even fight the terrorists in Lebanon who bombed our marines. I am happy to shred any notion of a conservative icon you think you have. I have not problem conceding disagreements with Bush but the absurd totalizing indictments on him can be easily played out against any other Republican president including Reagan.

Bush did an awesome and great job for this ungrateful nation.

No apologies here. Maybe your current president can give you an apology for Bush— he’s pretty good at that.

[lonestar67]

Let’s stop the deification of Bush?! Please point me to that location in any universe. Bush is the most hated man on the planet short of Ariel Sharon.

Reagan exponentially exploded the budget and violated all the budget trickery “biggest ever” games you are playing . Every sequential President includiing Obam is now “the biggest spender ever.” It is an utterly meaningless argument and now rather transparent as Obama spends more than Bush at an exponential rate. Bush is easily relatively conservative to Obama but you keep playing the shutdown the govt perspective which has empirically failed and increased liberal power over government.

Bush won those wars and the fact that radical statists are always prepared to take over any country we leave militarily means absolutely nothing to me. The cockroaches scurry away as soon as we turn the light on. They have no military prominence of staying power. Bush had lower net increases in budget discretionary spending than Clinton. You are data mining to spin alternatives. Clinton had zero interest in ending big government until conservatives like Bush took over in Congress.

As your post makes clear, Bush did do these things in essential political solitude. Suffering 30% approval for much of his final two years, he made the hard choices against his own party trying to pull him out and admit failure in Iraq. The consequences would have been Vietnam exponential. Refusing to give in even when Conservatives delighted in staying home November 2007 to hand Congress over constitued a supreme act of political heroism. Bush reactionaries of all stripes have an irrational BDS that even as Obama continues to clarify what 2007 and 2008 meant in terms of Bush Hate. Bush hate has produced ALL of the current economic downturn and ALL of the international collapse being implemented by Obama.

I am in many ways thrilled that Obama has three more years to help you confess how conservative Bush was. If you think Bush was liberal then you still have not seen nothing yet.

If Bush is not conservative then Reagan is definitely not a conservative. Reagan would not even fight the terrorists in Lebanon who bombed our marines. I am happy to shred any notion of a conservative icon you think you have. I have not problem conceding disagreements with Bush but the absurd totalizing indictments on him can be easily played out against any other Republican president including Reagan.

Bush did an awesome and great job for this ungrateful nation.

No apologies here. Maybe your current president can give you an apology for Bush— he’s pretty good at that.

[kabar]

Bush is easily relatively conservative to Obama but you keep playing the shutdown the govt perspective which has empirically failed and increased liberal power over government.

Using your logic, Clinton was more conservative than Bush. I provided you the data, but you just don't want to accept it. Even allowing for inflation, Bush spent more than Clinton and he expanded the entitlement programs with the prescription drug program, which represents an $8 trillion unfunded liability.

Bush had lower net increases in budget discretionary spending than Clinton.

Do you have any sources for that ridiculous assertion? During the Clinton years the percentage growth of federal non-defense spending was 5.53%, 5.38%, 4.10%, 2.78%, 4.01%, 3.10%, 4.71% and 4.09% respectively. Those eight years average a growth rate of 4.21%.

If Bush is not conservative then Reagan is definitely not a conservative. Reagan would not even fight the terrorists in Lebanon who bombed our marines. I am happy to shred any notion of a conservative icon you think you have. I have not problem conceding disagreements with Bush but the absurd totalizing indictments on him can be easily played out against any other Republican president including Reagan.

George W. Bush is no Ronald Reagan and I had the pleasure of meeting him and working for him. You are in a distinct minority on this site and there is nothing you can say or do that will "shred" his record or his accomplishments.

Bush did an awesome and great job for this ungrateful nation

Bush, like his father, helped to destroy the GOP. He presided over the loss of Congress because he destroyed the GOP brand on being the party of fiscal conservatism and limited government. And his support of amnesty against the majority of his own party is unforegivable.

No apologies here. Maybe your current president can give you an apology for Bush— he’s pretty good at that.

Obama is your current president as well. I voted twice for Bush and had to hold my nose to vote for McCain. Never again.