Posted on 11/19/2013 4:35:20 AM PST by Kaslin
"The Affordable Care Act's political position has deteriorated dramatically over the last week." That, coming from longtime Obamacare cheerleader and Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, was pretty strong language. And it was only Wednesday.
That was the day after the release of a devastating Quinnipiac national poll. It showed Barack Obama's approval rating at 39 percent, with his disapproval rating at 54 percent -- sharply down from 45 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval on Oct. 1, the day the government shutdown began and healthcare.gov went into (limited) operation.
Democrats hoped that Republicans would take a shellacking in public opinion for the Oct. 1-16 government shutdown. They did, briefly. But Quinnipiac's survey, conducted three weeks after the shutdown ended, indicated that the Obamacare rollout inflicted much more damage on the Democratic brand -- and the party's leader.
Quinnipiac's numbers on Obamacare were also exactly the same as their numbers on Obama: 49 percent favored the health care legislation, 55 percent were opposed. Moreover, a near-majority -- 46 percent -- said the president knowingly deceived them when he assured Americans over and over that they could keep their health insurance plans.
There are few names a president can be called that are more damaging than liar.
The numbers are particularly daunting when you look at the groups that Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg identifies as major parts of "the big cultural and demographic wave that threatens to swamp the Republican party" -- young voters and Hispanics.
Obama carried voters under 30 by 66 percent to 32 percent in 2008 and 60 percent to 37 percent in 2010. He carried older voters by 1 point in the first election and lost them to Mitt Romney in the second.
Obama did even better with Hispanics: 67 percent to 31 percent in 2008 and 71 percent to 27 percent in 2012. This was one of the few demographic groups among which he ran stronger than four years earlier.
But that was then, and this is now. Quinnipiac shows young voters disapproving of Obama 54 percent to 36 percent and Hispanics disapproving 47 percent to 41 percent.
Both groups rate him negatively on the economy, the federal budget, immigration, foreign policy and health care. Bare majorities, 51 percent of both groups, say Obama cares about people like them.
Obamacare, popular among both groups in 2012, is now an Obama albatross. Young voters oppose it 51 percent to 42 percent and Hispanics 50 percent to 44 percent. Majorities of both groups give Obama negative ratings on health care.
One must note that this is just one poll and that opinions may change as events unfold. But it looks very much like the astonishingly disastrous Obamacare rollout has moved opinion decisively against the president and his trademark policy.
And all those predictions -- not just by Democrats -- that the Republican Party faced extinction because of overwhelming opposition from Millennials and Hispanics look to be, like Mark Twain's famous obituary, premature.
There's one other interesting result from Quinnipiac. Has the Obama administration "been competent in running the government"? Overall, 53 percent said no and only 43 percent said yes. Young voters (47 percent said yes, 46 percent said no) and Hispanics (51 percent said yes, 46 percent said no) were only slightly more positive.
The fiasco of the healthcare.gov website undoubtedly contributed to this. But perhaps Americans are also starting to notice that this president is not performing his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the law -- and in this case, a law he and his party wrote.
The Obama administration announced last July that it is not enforcing Obamacare's employer mandate. It has admitted that it cannot verify the eligibility of applicants for Obamacare subsidies. (Come and get it!)
It says it will provide subsidies for those buying insurance through the federal health care exchanges in 36 states -- even though the legislation nowhere authorizes that.
And last Thursday, as congressional Democrats were panicking and supporting measures to allow people to keep their current health insurance policies, Obama announced that he would not impose penalties on policies that don't comply with the law.
That was plainly a transparent attempt to fob off the blame for cancelled policies on insurers and state regulators who complied with the law as written. It is a political ploy inconsistent with the rule of law.
Quinnipiac and other pollsters are not in the habit of asking Americans whether presidents are faithfully executing the law. The assumption has been that, unlike in Russia, they mostly are -- or were.
The Framers of the Constitution regarded refusal to faithfully execute the law as tyranny. Barack Obama, with his Swiss cheese exceptions to Obamacare, seems to take a different view.
Of course they did, but they voted for it anyway
As far as I’m concerned the president’s approval numbers are still ridiculously high. They are a testament to the liberal control of our classrooms.
Call me crazy, but with the mess this healthcare plan is, starting more wars, alliance with Iran, the economy still sucking, NSA snooping, and all the other Tom-foolery going on in this administration, I don’t think his poll numbers are that bad.
If this were a Republican President, he would have been forced to resign a long, long time ago.
He’s fallen and can’t get up...
At the very least, Benghazi, IRS maltreatment of conservative groups, NSA snooping on Americans in America, Fast and Furious would seem ripe fields for holding impeachment hearings. Even if Hairy Reed won’t do anything, the hearings would shine a lot of sunlight on 0bama’s malfeasance in office.
The numbers are at or near the bottom.
I consider 36% to be the bed rock of true believers that will not be swayed. The 39% number is edging close to the bedrock
The Emperor wears Golf Shoes.
If you like your president, you can keep him.
I'm ready to tell it like it is. If he were not passing himself off as a black president, he would've been held accountable all along the way, and thus less likely to end up with such total disasters.
One result of special minority class treatment throughout his life is that Obama just makes pronouncements and nobody challenged them, ever. It's insulting, and people doing this pandering are the worst kind of racists.
Also did you see the report that the unemployment rate before the 2012 election was fixed in his favor when it fell suddenly from 8.1% in August 2012 to 7.8% in September of 2012.
The liberals just can not win without fraud and deceit. The worst thing of it is they are getting away with it.
I find it astounding that his poll numbers are not far worse than those quoted. On the other hand, I still find it astounding that someone so obviously out of place occupies the oval office. It is equivalent to picking a random bum from the gutter and making him president, in fact it is far worse, most randomly picked bums do not hate this country. Some idiots usedd to tell me that we could not do worse than George W. Bush, I cringed every time I heard it said, we are now seeing the result of that attitude. If Obama is not worse than Bush then the word has no meaning.
What president? We don’t have one as far as I am concerned
They are at least 10 percent to high, but should be down to the mid or lower 20s
It's devastating, all right - but not for the reason Barone says.
It means that after everything that has happened and continues to happen, 4 in ten of the persons who inhabit this geographic area hate your country, hate you, and would kill your children if they could.
And, remember, some of the "disapproves" are unhappy because the killing of your children hasn't started yet.
Well, we can hope but I'm afraid this is probably a stretch.
Anyone voting for that dumb traitor needs to have a mental evaluation pronto, IMO.
Anyone voting for that dumb traitor needs to have a mental evaluation pronto, IMO.
I work with a woman who is digging in and defending Obama more with every passing day- refusing to admit anything is wrong or amiss or even that the country is fed up. No, Obamacare just has a few glitches and once the genius fixes them we will all see what a GOD he really is for bestowing free health care upon us all. She is a friend and in the past we have just kind of joked and had lighthearted debates, but it is getting harder and harder to be around her. I am actually getting this uneasy feeling that she really is crazy because of this. The other day I just came out and said that for the sake of our friendship we should stop talking about politics and Obamacare in particular. She keeps bringing it up and I at first gently and lightheartedly remind her, then she keeps at it and I have to say no really, you need to stop.
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