When President Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, he enjoyed meteoric poll numbers. His approval numbers remained relatively high after the initial euphoria of the inauguration had worn off. After the “stimulus” package was passed and signed into law his numbers remained high on the hope that his economic policies might actually work. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the honeymoon is now officially over.
Pollster Scott Rasmussen charts his Presidential approval ratings by calculating the difference between those that strongly approve of the President and those that strongly disapprove of the President. On January 20 the Presidential approval index was a +27, with 42% strongly approving and 15% strongly disapproving. The ensuing months have seen a gradual decline of the index until about a week ago when the index was about even. Then the disappointing jobs report was released and his approval index has spread back out to a –8 with only 30% strongly approving and 38% strongly disapproving.
Rasmussen is just one of the many indicators of the President’s numbers dropping dramatically. ABC News polls have shown the same drop as well as noted pollster John Zogby. The question is what are the factors that have caused this drastic change in opinion. Obviously the economy plays a big role in the approval numbers, but another major factor is the seemingly endless spending and extreme power grab that has taken hold of Washington. In President Obama’s first few months in Washington he has spent at historic rates. He has seized control of 2 of the big 3 automakers and countless financial institutions.
As the economy continues to slow down in the face of numerous promises from Washington about the “stimulus” package, the bureaucrats are trying to ram through a cap and trade plan that will hamstring the economy and cause energy rates to sky rocket, and they are planning on taking over 1/7 of our economy in the form of the health care industry. They claim that they are merely providing a government option as competition to the private market. The President was already caught in his lie that no one will force you to lose your current doctor under his plan, when it was pointed out that companies will inevitably choose to let the government pay for the healthcare thereby forcing their employees to choose another doctor. One last note about the President’s health care debacle, a government option is not true competition because no government program is ever required to run in the black. The government option will hemorrhage billions, if not trillions of dollars, and will not have any shareholders or board members requiring them to turn a profit. This will in effect bankrupt all of the “competition” in the private market causing the only option to be the government option.
President Obama was overseas yet again this week, but this trip he was not met with the raucous and fawning crowds to which he has grown accustomed. Instead the tepid response from those gathered has shown the President that the public, both at home and abroad, are beginning to grow weary of empty rhetoric. Given his track record of limitless spending, unbridled seizing of power, the nomination of a judge with racist tendencies to the Supreme Court, and apologizing for the United States around the world, I do not hold out hope that he will change his ways. After all they are already talking about a second “stimulus” package since the first one has been such a smashing success.
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Comments: 46
Thanks, Troy. You stated the facts beautifully. But it's an ugly story.
I agree.
Republican approval numbers are lower.
luckky, I think you better check again. The latest polls show that the Democrats are in severe trouble heading into next years midterm elections, and if you look at the trends the Republican numbers are rising while Obama's an dthe Democrats are dropping. Spin it however helps you sleep at night, but it is hardly good news for your party.
What has been happening is not good news for either party. If my suspicion turns out to be correct the turnout in 2010 will be very low. There are disillusioned voters on both sides and many of them will simply stay home and which party will benefit from a low turnout is difficult to predict at this point.
I watched CNN late this afternoon and it reported that a poll showed where 75 % of the USA remain confident on Obama.
Meanwhile, top line Republicans like Palin, Sanford, and Ensign are embroiled in troubles of some kind and none appear ready for 2102.
I think President Obama used Hope of Change to get elected. Once he was in the hot seat, he may have found it not so easy to make changes....thus his promises are bound to fall short. Things are such a mess I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.
Looks like Obama will be a one term President. He has ticked off far too many of his Liberal whackjob followers. He hasn't legalized gay marriage on a national scale....nor will he. He hasn't instituted a Government paid health care program...nor will he. He hasn't legalized cocaine induced street orgies...nor will he. He hasn't given free everything to everybody...nor will he. He hasn't legalized everything that is illegal...nor will he.
Christ on a cracker, this man hasn't lived up to campaign promises that he never made in the first place!
One term President.
Timothy,
Do you belong to "The Party of No" or were you being sacastic?
Timothy, I wish I could share your optimism, but as the old saying goes it takes two to tango. Currently with the state of the Republican Party there may not be anyone who can challenge the weakened president in 2012. Mid term elections in 2010 might restore "divided government" to Washington and that may be enough to satisfy the independent voters. That is assuming that we have fair and balanced elections in 2012 to begin with.
Well we tried to tell people from Obama's record, he was a fraud, but the left never listens, and always has to find out the hard way. But that is ok, they can always pass the buck as always.
The sad thing was, neither Obama nor McCain were ever any good, and too many did not want to face that fact.
Let's not forget that when he "bailed out" ("siezed" might be a better word) the auto companies, he turned the contractual legality of our financial system on it's head. When bondholders, who are first in line for repayment, get 10 or 20 cents on the dollar, but the union ends up owning a large part of the company, who's going to buy private bonds from an American company again? I still blame this one on Bush, for the initial bailout. He should've escorted them into an organized bankruptcy, regardless of the political consequences for McCain, and the GOP. He's still getting blamed by the Obama administration, so what's the diff?
Excellent column, Troy!
You make a good case, Troy. If Obama succeeds, America must fail. I don't want Obama to succeed.
Still much higher than Bush's numbers were at this same time.
I think the biggest thing that will come back to bite the Dems was voting for the largest spending bill in US history without reading it!
Pelosi did it again a couple of weeks ago with cramming the Cap and Tax bill in at 3:AM with most of all the House not knowing what they voted on. The Senate saw this and is very afraid.
Like I tell everyone now, on a blog or at my kids baseball games......"Have you changed your IRA. 401K, 403B, or your kid's 529 plan for the inflation that is coming in the next couple of years? Or, are you just going to be a victim, again"."
The American public is smarting up to the idea that we just borrowed our kids into the biggest hole ever and it didn't work.
Many independants voted for him because he was black and not because they fully believed in what he was saying. It was a way to purge some of their liberal guilt.
Many independants voted for him because he came off as a rock star. Many poeple like a feel good, cult of personality leader.
Ever wonder why Hillary Clinton has to sit at the "little kids table" during dinner? I think she wants to separate herself from him. He's a political timebomb waiting to happen and she wants to keep her image up.
Just think, Bill Clinton is jealous of Obama being able to slam dunk all this socialism, but deep down his chuckling now that Obama is losing rock star status. He wasn't a rockstar in Russia or Italy.
I predict in the next week or two that Obama will have a "rock star" event, because his ego needs it.
timothy McV quote:
He hasn't legalized cocaine induced street orgies...nor will he.
WTF? If you want orgies, follow a Republican lawmaker.
You RWN are really pathetic. Rasmussen is a right leaning pollster who consistently polls anything not RW on a lower rating. That means they are a bunch of idiot wankers posing as objective, which is the modus operendus of the GOP. Everybody else ranks him between 8 to 10 points higher. Seize you jollies where you can get them boys but it won't make a difference election time. The Dems have yet to let loose the guns on the GOP voting record and complicity in our economic debacle and weakened international standing. It is the enabling MORONS of the Republican party who own our current difficulties lock stock and barrel. You can't wiggle out of it no matter how low you go.
Rassmussen was wrong on the election, wrong on the Congress and wrong today. But that's why you quote him like he actually means anything.
Obama is a joke and he pulled the wool over the libs... I think its funny to watch them try and defend their idol.....
" WTF? If you want orgies, follow a Republican lawmaker. "
Or look undrneath Bill Clinton's desk!
" Timothy,
Do you belong to "The Party of No" or were you being sacastic? "
Carol, did you actually take a break from commenting on stupid pictures and decide to spread your nonsense in an intelligent thread?
THIS is an intelligent thread? Mutual mental masturbation by reactionary right-wing nutballs doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent.
" Timothy, I wish I could share your optimism, but as the old saying goes it takes two to tango. Currently with the state of the Republican Party there may not be anyone who can challenge the weakened president in 2012. "
Exactly. It will probably be Hillary Clinton. Then after 4 years of her failed term, another Republican will be elected. Then after 4 to 8 years under failed Republican rule, another Democrat will be elected.
Perhaps once the American voters come to the realization that these supposed elected officials are put in place to keep things as they currently are, maybe we will make some progress as a true Democracy.
America always makes the mistake of electing dems -- and after fours years they remember why they voted them out. Obama will follow the same path as Jimmy Carter. Four years and the dems will be swept aside for another twenty years. Capitalism, free markets -- that's what drives America. Obama is a socialist, and we all know it's a failed ideology. Change is coming, indeed.
You keep hoping there Don. Sarah Palin in 12. Donate every last penny you own.
Just basing my opinion on history. Political moonbattery is short lived.
"they are planning on taking over 1/7 of our economy in the form of the health care industry"
Troy, health care reform doesn't mean that the government controls health care. Get your facts straight!
Facts are anti-Republican Baby. The cause Repubs excess growth of brain cells which lead to the deadly disease called, "thinking."
yeah Sam and once enough cells have died, that person becomes a Dem.
facts are anathema to both parties. If they weren't, both would have died years ago. Keynesian economics sure proves that facst don't stand in the way of politically popular needs.
"Health care industry" is an oxymoron; at least it should be. No one should make a profit from others' misery.
Polls are fickle things and too much depends on the wording (and intent of the pollster) but in one thing they do agree historically, presidents lose that bloom rather quickly.
This is hillarious beyond my imagination. When Bush 43's poll numbers tanked it was because "polls are false and don't REALLY represent what people are thinking." ROFL...
Obama's numbers are still in the high 50's. I'll believe he is REAL trouble if his numbers dropped below... say 30 like Bush 43's did.
But it's this delusion you on the Right have that people are going to turn on him at the drop of a hat. Yes, folks are wanting to see more progress on the recovery plan. But Obama has said from the beginning that this mess is going to take time. And on the issue of a second stimulus, the President said it was too early to start talking about that. That we need to give this more time.
Typical of the immediate-gratification culture we live in that you are calling Obama a failure because he hasn't, in the space of 7 months, remedied a catatastrophe that was years in the making. The meltdowns of Wall Street, the auto industry, healthcare, etc. cannot and will not be cured by quick or easy means. I'd say "If you think you can do better, have at it", but the GOP has already proven, time and again, that they cannot begin to solve the problems their retro-cranially-inverted policies have caused.
I love how the Right is taking the President to task for apologizing to the rest of the world, on behalf of the US, for the high-handed way his predecessor treated them after 9/11. Bush 43 expended all of our diplomatic capital in that one move of dismissing other nations' concerns, and now his successor has to rebuild those relationships from ground zero or zero minus.
Do you believe they don't deserve an apology, or that Obama is a fool to give one even if it is deserved, or both? Neither, by the way, is correct.
I see no proof of that anywhere. While Dems numbers are down, Republican numbers are far lower.
GOP Party Identification Slips Nationwide and in Pennsylvania
No Indication of Further Democratic Gains
April 29, 2009
Over the first four months of 2009, the Republican Party has continued to lose adherents. Interviews with over 7,000 respondents nationwide so far this year found fewer than a quarter (23%) of the combined total identifying themselves as Republicans. This is down from 25% in 2008, and from 30% in 2004. In total, the GOP has lost roughly a quarter of its base over the past five years.
But these Republican losses have not translated into substantial Democratic gains. So far in 2009, 35% of adults nationwide identify as Democrats, about the same as in 2008 (36%). While GOP identification has fallen seven points since 2004, the Democrats have gained only two points over that period. Instead, a growing number of Americans describe themselves as independents, 36% in 2009 compared with just 32% in 2008 and 30% in 2004.