It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.
Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.
Obviously, Obama has done more in his first fifty days than most presidents, and hence, has given people more reason to change their minds about him--I myself opined that it was only natural his high approval ratings couldn't last. But I hadn't realized the landscape was changing so fast. Still, I think the president has considerable political capital, and if it really is true that only Republican obstructionism stands between him and a fully staffed Treasury, he has enough juice to take on that obstruction and win.
In a world where we are forced to read news "snippets" in the elevator in the morning, opinion can change by the second.
Rasmussen is a Republican pollster and Schoen is a Democratic concern troll. Besides, have you compared Rasmussen's numbers with other polls? I wonder what stopped Republicans/Conservatives from having critical thinking skills.
I guess the "just say no" GOP are having an impact.
Too bad they lose that patriotic spirit -- happily displayed when it comes to war -- when it comes to salvaging the economy and helping them that don't. As someone who's likely to get a tax increase, I call 'em out as greedy fools. Their mantra: "God bless the child that's got his own."
"Obviously, Obama has done more in his first fifty days than most presidents, and hence, has given people more reason to change their minds about him--I myself opined that it was only natural his high approval ratings couldn't last."
That doesn't seem so obvious to me. What has he done? On terrorism and homeland defense he has only messed with the edges of what amounts to continueing Bush's policy. On foreign policy, he announced that we would continue to be in Iraq until the SOFA runs out, planned to put a few thousand more people Afghanista, had a poorly thought out inititive with Russia fall flat on its face and begged the Chinese to lend us more money. On the domestic front, any porker of either party in Congress could have written his stimulus package or budget for that matter. It hardly seems like much of a heavy lift to get a Democratic congress to pass a bill that mostly gives pork to Democratic causes. He has done nothing about the banking crisis beyond handing out more money and floundering trying to continue Bush/Paulson's old policies.
Honestly, Megan, what on earth makes you say that?
The issue is that other surveys do not see the high disapproval claimed by Rasmussen.
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/jobapproval-obama.php
All the points with much higher job disapproval are Rassmussen.
Too bad they lose that patriotic spirit -- happily displayed when it comes to war -- when it comes to salvaging the economy and helping them that don't. As someone who's likely to get a tax increase, I call 'em out as greedy fools. Their mantra: "God bless the child that's got his own."
What is the Democratic mantra then? "Lets steal as much money from future generations and God bless the baby boomer is taken all he can?" No one who plans to run up trillions of dollars in debt can claim to have any concern about children. Yes I know Bush did it to. So what? If an acholic told you it was a bad idea to drink a bottle of bourbon a day would you tell him he has no right to call you out for doing the same?
zic,
I find it difficult to name anything Obama has done to salvage the economy. Or at the very least if you can point out 2 positives there are 10 negatives that bring it down much further in the opposite direction.
Has Obama done all that much? Maybe, maybe not. The problem is not the volume of activity, but the activity itself. People were inclined to give him plenty of beenfit of the doubt on the economy and he underplayed even those lowered expectations.
zic, perhaps you hadn't noticed, but the Republicans are a minority party.
You already know that it is not "really" Republican obstructionism that is causing Treasuring to be empty of staffers since about the only Treasury staff that has had a confirmation hearing is the tax cheat Secretary. All the rest of them have withdrawn voluntarily, well before any Senate hearings.
I mean, what are the Republicans doing to obstruct Obama's own vetting process? Good grief.
PS...did anyone else see the Chinese say publicly they hope the U.S. is safeguarding their Treasury assets??!!! Not good.
One thing Obama did do was run around and scream that the sky was falling for the short term political gain of getting the porkulus passed. This of course had the effect of helping the markets tank by about a third. One of the most important things a President can do, and Clinton and Reagan were probably the best at it in my lifetime, is give a sense of optimism to the country about the economy. This has a way of becoming a self fulling prophacy. People think things are better and thus spend more making things better. BO running around preaching depression and worst crisis ever during the run up to the porkulus vote was about the most irresponsible thing he could have done.
Now of course since he has the porkulus, he is backtracking and trying to claim that things are not as bad as they seem.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96SP30G5&show_article=1
Did things change in the last month? If so, what? If not, then is Obama stupid a liar or both? Sadly probably both.
John DE, it's true that Rasmussen is on the lower end, but they are not an outlier and the trend is universal. Across the board he has dropping approval ratings and his negatives are on steroids.
Again, Megan, if Obama decides to fight to the death on the hill of Treasury appointees, by attacking the party which has a whole 40 Senate votes, those with money who oppopse Obama will likely respond with a media campaign which pounds home, day after day, as April 15 approaches, that President Obama thinks that the ideal Treasury Secretary and enforcer of tax laws is a man who says that he didn't know huge sums of money being deposited into his bank account constituted a taxable event for which taxes had not been withheld. Whatcha' think that'll do to the ol' approval numbers, especially among independents?
This was always the political risk in naming and sticking with Geithner, no matter how highly one thinks of his abilities. He started the job entirely politically vulnerable and without integrity regarding some of the important functions of his job. Juice won't put out a wildfire.
I think it is both, I don't think Obama understands how to weild the power of the presidency, and why should he? He has never wielded any power at all, let alone the most powerful job in the world where any random poorly constructed sentence can cause panic. He started campaigning for president almost as soon as he got into the Senate he never got the experience of being in the Senate, for whatever that is worth to begin with.
I think that most of the public is still waiting to see what happens with the stimulus and that is why his personal popularity is at odds with the popularity of his proposals...the same reason Megan voted for him...hope that his personal charisma and intelligence are going to mean that the policies he has said he supports and has always supported are not going to be what he does as president. This was always a fools errand.
I wonder how many disapprove of all possible plans in this situation?
When you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, then disapproval doesn't really imply approval of the opposition.
Predicting that Obama's popularity would drop wasn't exactly going out on a limb. For one thing, it happens to nearly every president.
But in Obama's case, his campaign was vague enough that he had a group of voters really excited about having a true liberal for president, and another group of voters certain that he would govern from the center (including the David Brooks/Peggy Noonan set). He could not possibly have satisfied both groups.
The Geithner affair has to be BO's biggest blunder so far. He spent all of his political capital getting a petty thief and tax cheat confirmed on the assurance that Geithner, despite being President of the NY Fed during the biggest credit meltdown in history, was uniquely qulified for the job. In less than a month, he has gone from "uniquely qualified" to the punchline of any number of jokes. He is now considered perhaps worse than Paulson. Obama was just stupid to have fought to got him through.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96SP30G5&show_article=1
I share others confusion about how this taken-for-granted Republican obstructionism is manifesting itself.
Perhaps Megan could provide some examples or clarification about what she means by "obstructionism".
Confirmations require, so far as I know, a simple majority vote in the Senate. The Democrats have 59 senate seats so barring a filibuster by the Republicans, it should be a relatively simple matter to confirm any nominees they like.
"Obstruction" would, to my mind, imply that there are lots of nominees waiting to be confirmed but the Republicans are dragging out the confirmation hearings and then shutting things down by promising filibusters and the like. Is there any evidence that this is happening?
What seems to be happening is that Obama is very, very slow to come up with any nominees for Treasury and then on the rare occassion when he finally names someone, they turn out to have tax problems -- which I know we aren't supposed to care about, but even Obama might be loathe to appoint any more tax-dodgers between now and tax-time -- or other unnamed problems and they withdraw.
Is it that people are scared the Republicans might ask them questions in their confirmation hearings? Is that what "obstructionism" means now? That you are so fearsome -- on the basis, I suppose, of having asked Geithner about his flagrant tax-cheating -- that you don't even have to bother with any actual obstruction, your reputation takes care of it for you?
Or is it that Obama and the Democrats are worried that even though they have the numbers to sail any nominee through the Senate, just by learning these people's names Republicans and maybe even a few of the more independent-minded journalists might take the time to look into their past and find that they have cheated on their taxes or flagrantly ignored labor law or have other embarrassing indescritions in their past?
And the Democrats have decided that instead of just facing the embarassment if they feel that's the best person for the job or finding someone who actually obeys the law (if such a Democrat still exists somewhere...) they'd rather just not nominate anyone and have Megan and others take it for granted that their failure must in some mysterious way actually be the fault of the Republicans?
Actually, I don't think Megan does think it is only Republican obstructionism which prevents Obama from staffing Treasury, hence the use of the modifier "if". I do think she has underestimated the politically problematic nature of having a Treasury Secretary who behaved in the manner that Geithner did. I oppose the War on Drugs, but can say that a President would be poorly served in naming a guy, who had a few fairly recent drug busts on his record, to be Drug Czar.
Will Allen,
I think it is more than just Geithner being a thief and a tax cheat. The problem is that BO has totally bought into the narative that all of the financial problems are the exclusive result of greedy bankers and not the result of incompetant or corrupt government regulation. Now of course, anyone who knows anything about the markets is from Wall Street. For this reason, it is pretty hard for BO to come up with someone who is qualified and isn't in some way connected with the crash. If he were not such a liar and demogogue on the issue, he would have a lot easier time filling the posts.
Denise made a good point that many people were inevitably destined to be disappointed with Obama, because he had seemed to promise too many different things to different groups. It was never clear what we were going to get from this person whose words and actions had so often conflicted, and who had done far too little to have built up much of a track record.
But for many people, all that could be forgiven if only Obama really seemed to be focusing on fixing the financial system. Instead he's trying to ram through his agendas on education, healthcare, etc. Even if you think his ideas are good (which I don't), he's shouting about how a new roof is a good long term investment to prevent problems 10 years from now, when the house is on fire today and he's not even trying to put it out. He used the crisis for his own political purposes (to get the stimulus passed), and now he's lost interest and can't be bothered with it any more.
Finally, pork we can believe in!
Well, I guess cries of pork and tax fraud are to be expected from Megan's commenters, nearly all of whom hated Obama before the election and would dislike whatever plan or nominee he proposed.
But come on, WSJ and Rasmussen? Really? The R2K weekly tracker has Obama's favorables at a massive 68/27...down tremendously from his previous high of 69/26. Meanwhile, the Republican party is at 29/66 and Congressional Republicans are at 16/71. Yeah, we see exactly who the public likes and dislikes and who they trust on the economy.
Your problem is that you're in a giant echo chamber. You don't like Obama, the people you talk to don't like Obama, so you start thinking the country doesn't. Keep thinking that.
The country does "like" Obama, but they don't "like" his policies nearly as much, as is shown by almost all of the polls..and sooner or later this dichotomy is going to disappear, so either the public will "like Obama less or "like" his policies more.
The devil is in the details, as they say. Almost everyone is going to say that yes, they believe that every American should have access to health care...but when people see what that access is going to cost them, things may change.
It is always easy to support a platitude, like more jobs and better health care, much more difficult when it comes down to the policy itself.
Also, there are these things called "anonymous holds" that exist in the Senate. Do some research on how exactly Republicans are able to obstruct things. To say Reid could just have a vote tomorrow on nominees and pass it with 50 displays a shocking level of ignorance about how the Senate works.
"they don't "like" his policies nearly as much, as is shown by almost all of the polls"
You're going to have to quite "almost all of the polls", or at least several of them, because this isn't actually true. I mean, if you want to call the stimulus getting 58% support while Obama has higher than that a terrible blow, I guess you could do that.
I do love the line about paying more for health care though. As though it were even possible to pay more for less than the current bloated, corrupt, ineffective nightmare of a system we have with private insurance.
So, is it fear of the anonymous hold that is causing so many nominees to back out of the process before getting close to Senate hearings? Is that it?
I didn't realize the GOP still instilled such fear in Democrats.
Oh I guarantee you that millions of Americans will indeed pay more for less when Obama's health care plan is enacted.
No actually it’s like this: Obama has nominees with potentially embarrassing issues (tax evasion, regulators that were on duty when the financial crisis was building, business ties to the people who created the crisis, etc.) so Republicans naturally went to Harry Reid and threaten to place a hold on these nominees so that they wouldn’t ever have to testify in the Senate and have to face tough questions about these issues in a public forum where it might hurt the Obama administration.
Makes perfect sense to me.
This seems kind of chicken and egg to me. Obama isn't doing the things that have to be done, like appoint treasury officials. His approval rating drops and makes him afraid to do things like appoint treasury officials. and the circle continues.....
In an unintentionally hilarous bit of ignorance, Adam said:
As others have already pointed out, to have an "anonymous hold" on a nominee there must first be a nominee. So the fact that there have been so few names mentioned and those few have bowed out before the evil Republicans could deploy the dastardly anonymous hold maneuver suggests that it is not the Republicans doing -- unless, again, we are crediting the Republicans with such powers that the mere threat of them is enough to scare away these poor skittish potential appointees.
But, beyond that, anonymous holds are not "super secret nobody ever knows about it" holds. If there were a raft of nominees waiting to be confirmed and all of them were being stopped by Republican anonymous holds the Dems would be crowing it from the tops of buildings. There would be more than a few leaks of who these 'anonymous' holders were.
Here, for example, is an article about the anonymous hold put on Hilda Solis by Republicans:
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0109/012309cdam1.htm
You will note in the article that they say she is nominated and that there is a Republican hold on her. Can you point me to the names of the phantom Treasury nominees and any mention of holds put on them?
But I do see your point. I mean, clearly Solis will never be confirmed as Sec. of Labor b/c the evil Republicans are using their all-powerful anonymous hold... what's that? She was already confirmed? But what about the super powered anonymous hold that the evil Republicans had deployed against her? A few answered questions and they dropped it? Not much of a super-power.
Adam, do you actually know what Geithner did? If so, do you think such behavior is acceptable in a person charged with enforcing the U.S. tax code?
It's been, what, 50 days? I'm not sure you can judge much of anything about a president in that period of time.
John
You post so much here, why don't you create your own blog?
"I think that most of the public is still waiting to see what happens with the stimulus and that is why his personal popularity is at odds with the popularity of his proposals...the same reason Megan voted for him...hope that his personal charisma and intelligence are going to mean that the policies he has said he supports and has always supported are not going to be what he does as president. This was always a fools errand."
Wishful thinking, Troll Boy - take a peak at the liberal blogs to see how he's faring with the folks who put him in the White House- there is a left-wing/Democratic love affair with this man - in part because he's undoing the Bush legacy as well as the Reagan rape of America. From Ledbetter to Stem Cells - from stimulus to gag rules, from appointnments like Steven Chu and Kathleen Sebelius and Hillary Clinton and Solis - we dig this guy. And we like his wife too - in direct porportion to the hate shown by the right wing. Of course McArdle looks to the WSJ and Rasmussen for tips on Obama's popularity - if she looks anywhere else she gets the REAL story...
Everyone knows that Obama's core supporters, the hard left, still love him.
What everyone isn't so sold on, is that the country itself has moved hard left. I'd say not everyone is even sold on the fact that a vote for Obama was a vote for Obama or a vote against Bush and the GOP.
I read the liberal blogs and I find them terrifying, from the flat out hate that is displayed toward business to the drooling sycophancy over anything that smacks of 'the workers' and the absolute, rock solid lack of reflection or refusal to brook any dissent. I've seen calls for the hanging of CEOs and statements that the constitution guarantees health care and education. Very, very flakey stuff.
The hard left is the same as the hard right, the only difference is their pet dogma.
You know we had a rally in the market this week. Some reasons? The British said they couldn't get anybody on the phone at Treasury. Schumer tanked Freeman. Buffet said the banks might earn their way out of the crisis. Obama looks happy at the White House with that picture of Georg Washington behind him. People may think, 'Rescue mescue, who cares?' Precisely because Obama is not going to get all that much done there's less to worry about. Time for a party!!! No?
Bush at this time in his presidency had nearly a 70% approval rating. What the public thinks now is of little impact.
"The hard left is the same as the hard right, the only difference is their pet dogma."
"Hard Left" sounds like an oxymoron. For the most part the far lefts tends to be soft. They don't really know how to fight.
The hard right is most of the movement and doesn't know how to do anything but fight. They sure as hell can't make a government work right.
In times like this both always get harder though.
Gotta get my head straightened out. It's like I'm possessed by some awful spirit.
Obama is proving to be a lobbyist loving, tax cheat hiring, pork dishing sonofabitch just like any other candidate and president...opposite of his campaign promises.
So much for honest and ethical. That's why those nominees back out. They aren't honest and ethical.
Obama made everyone think he would soar above politics and everyone would just toe the line because he's a Good Person. Well, if you don't want to play politics, don't run for office. He's put himself in the muck and the mire along with everyone else. Opposite of campaign promises.
I mean, whiskey tango foxtrot, going after Limbaugh? What a stupid way to piss away your political capital and good will, chasing after a radio host past his prime with a shrinking audience and market share.
The bad manners of giving American DVDs to the UK PM, of whining about his bad inheritance, of continuing the Bush bashing as if it were still the campaign. The inevitable buyer's remorse after experiencing reality after a slick marketing campaign.
There might be a polling Bradley effect--people don't really like BO and his policies, but say they do, out of racial guilt and the desire to avoid inciting the race riots because of a failed black president.
kentuckyliz lives in an alternate universe of her own creation. She's welcome to it - I certainly wouldn't want to live there.
Its funny how the wingnuts clapped like trained seals every day for Dumbya - but they now complain about faults in Obama's nascent presidency that don't compare to the ethical and performance fuckups that defined every single day of Dumbya's horrible reign.
I guess that's the sort of hypocrisy and denseness that can be expected from a bunch of torture-loving extremists, though.
It is a fallacy of the left wing to believe that everyone who does NOT like Obama did like Bush. It isn't true. I despised Bush and almost everything he did as president....I also don't have faith that Obama is going to be a good president or even, now, after watching him make some rookie mistakes that even Carter and Clinton didn't make, that he is capable of being a good president.
The 'oh but you liked Bush' is a straw man argument, as is calling anyone who doesn't like Obama a 'torture loving extremist'...
I think Megan is waffling on another of her presidential picks. Is there anything this woman doesn't change her mind about?