Obama’s Ratings Dive

Dick Morris.com ^ | July 24h,2012 | Dick Morris

[Hojczyk]

His personal favorability, once a strong point for Obama, has vanished and is now being replaced by a personal dislike that is dragging him down.

These data, buried deep in the latest NY Times/CBS poll (of registered voters, not likely voters) are both stark and important. In April, Obama had a 42-45 favorable/unfavorable rating, itself a shock given his vastly higher favorable ratings only a few months before. Now, he has a favorable rating of only 36% and an unfavorable rating of 48%.

The NY Times poll showed Romney getting 47% of the vote compared to 46% for Obama (again, this poll is of registered voters, likely voter polls are more pro-Romney). So that means that one-quarter of Obama’s voters do not give him a favorable rating – a danger sign for the president.

What is most notable about this statistic is that it is not due primarily to the bad economy. While the Times poll showed that the percent of voters who feel he is doing a good job in handling the economy has dropped to 36%, Obama’s ratings in this category have been low for some time. The drop in favorability is new.

Rather the cause of his decreased likeability is his negative campaigning, both in person and on the air. He is now no longer the sunny, optimistic, friendly person he portrayed himself as being in 2008. Instead, a nasty, surly, angry image has taken over.

This change is at the heart of Obama’s dilemma. The more he goes negative, the more he hurts himself in the process and undermines the reservoir to good will that has sustained him through tough economic times.

As recently as one year ago, Obama’s personal favorability was ten points above his vote share in most polls. Now it is ten points below it presaging further a likely further drop in his poll number

[sam_paine]

I wouldn’t have drawn any attention to it, but it is his preferred nomenclature, Donny.

[The Working Man]

Obama doesn’t wear well—even many who supported the “historic” president—have grown tired of his speeches and talk. they see him as disconnected—too much fundraising and golf —— A weak president unable to handle things. These are Democrats too.

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In the way he is constantly on TV, he is just like Clinton. It seemed like he was on the tube Every Single Day!

Under George Bush it was like a breath of sunshine, he was hardly ever on TV.

[p. henry]

So, if you are one of those folks who say you intend to vote for the President but you also say you have an unfavorable view of him, just how likely is it that you will drag yourself to a polling booth on Election Day? With fewer and fewer uncommitted voters, it seems that the key to success is to motivate those who are committed to you to actually vote. Enthusiasm on the conservative side has been said by Rasmussen to be “stratospheric.” If that enthusiasm persists to Election Day, it will be hard for a President with favorability ratings in the thirties to overcome it.

[Alberta's Child]

Obama’s problem is that he’s running in 2012 as a surly black man who is in over his head and clearly incompetent. No amount of window-dressing is going to change that perception.

[1035rep]

Agreed

[sam_paine]

I think otherwise reasonable older and/or white people who consider themselves progressive, but not leftist are starting to wake up.

Whether gun owners or not, older people still think of guns first as mere tools, not murder weapons. Like they think of hoes, axes, baseball bats, propane tanks, cars etc...all tools...not something that immediately conjures murder.

When they see Obama personally come out and denounce Zimmerman’s self defense, it brings back all the previous times they gave him the benefit of the doubt (Princeton cops “acting stupidly.”)

When they see Obama personally mock how successful people “think they’re so smart,” I think they internalize that as a personal insult.

Perhaps that 40% approval rating through thick-and-thin that has seemed so perplexing in the face of all his failure is a house of cards and will collapse precipitously to reality.

[RoseofTexas]

OMG! Damn GOOD ad!! ROMMEY are you listening!!

[jacquej]

I find myself wishing that Dick Morris would prattle on about how OBlammer’s harsh attacks are working, and that he should “kick it up a notch”.

We don’t want to give that cast of quislings any hints, do we?

[mellow velo]

The Øbama camp can read the tea leaves, too. They know that his favorability is tanking. That's why there'll be a scorched earth policy ... ref Stephanie Cutter, et al ... in order to increase Romney's unfavorability.

Øbama will spew forth a negative campaign to dwarf all previous negative campaigns.

[Rennes Templar]

“I cannot image why it took this long.”

One word: media

[VRWC For Truth]

Hope and Change is Malaise and Bankruptcy. Idolatry of a corrupt charlatan comes home to roost.

[Agamemnon]

Romney needs to hire the people that did this great ad for Scott Brown:

One of the best particularly in this region of the country.

I also think this is part of Romney's strategy. Don't go tit for tat with Obama in a negative way just yet. Obama's persona pulls him down further the more negative he gets.

The more negative Obama gets the more desperate he appears.

I think Romney is keeping his powder dry and he'll unleash post convention with a string of primarily optimistic, Reaganesque ads under his name, while the SuperPACs rip deeply into Obama in ways Romney isn't - "Swift-boat" style.

FReegards!

[Marathoner]

In the way he is constantly on TV, he is just like Clinton. It seemed like he was on the tube Every Single Day!

The difference is that, as much as I didn't care for der Schlickmeister, he did come off as a likeable good ole boy. Commissar Zero doesn't have that ability.

[Minnesota fox]

I want someone smarter than me to explain: IF going negative is starting to bring his favorability down, how then, would they even consider going “scorched earth???”

[dennisw]

The difference is that, as much as I didn't care for der Schlickmeister, he did come off as a likeable good ole boy. Commissar Zero doesn't have that ability.

He was not a likable good ol boy to me...he came off as a grand conman in the American tradition. But at least he came off as an American. Obama comes off as a foreign entity. With little of the American experience living out in lala land Hawaii and 3rd world Muslim Indonesia. Even his blackness is fake, derived from a Kenyan who was just passing through. At least Bill Clinton was in the boy scouts and managed to shake JFK's hand in a well known photo. Plus he had a political hack uncle who mentored him.

[BJ1]

I want someone smarter than me to explain: IF going negative is starting to bring his favorability down, how then, would they even consider going “scorched earth???

What other option(s) do they have left? What is better post-Obama? I can't think of anything. Can you?

[Hotlanta Mike]

[TheShaz]

I think Romney is keeping his powder dry and he'll unleash post convention with a string of primarily optimistic, Reaganesque ads under his name, while the SuperPACs rip deeply into Obama in ways Romney isn't

I agree, in fact I think the Romney campaign is going to start DURING the Olympics pointing out what he did for the Winter Games a few years ago. Positive adds on his experience and the results of that experience.

I would like Agamemnon suggests.....like to see Romney keep on the mostly high road and let the Super PAC's go after Obama and shred him to pieces. That Scott Brown add is indeed perfect for the North East, kinda hard to complain when most of the Presidents speaking or quoted were Democrats.

I wonder if Romney can do a version of Reagan's "Morning in America" but flip it 180degrees to "Midnight in America" and then start rattling off the how messed up we are, Economically and otherwise and then finish with "We can fix this, let me help you"

[Leep]

I agree, in fact I think the Romney campaign is going to start DURING the Olympics pointing out what he did for the Winter Games a few years ago.

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Good pick up. Never even occurred to me. The Olympics!

[Atlantan]

Can anyone explain the new NBC News/WSJ poll showing Obama 49%-Romney 43%? That’s the highest I’ve seen for Obama in a while.