RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Obama's Approval Rating Crashes Violently

Most if not all the stories WB mention were all front page news on the papers and news sites I read so it doesn't appear minor to me.

The stories have been reported though WB. The problems with his cabinet picks, lobbyists, tax evaders and all that. Granted stuff like the Homeland Security memo doesn't have the spin you think it should but it was reported as well as the negative reaction to it. I do agree with much you have to say about the press conference. He certainly hasn't raised the bar on taking questions. That might cost him if he keeps it up.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama faces growing concerns among voters over government spending, the auto industry bailout and other economic policies, according to two opinion polls released on Wednesday.

Obama, who took office in January, remains popular with Americans, although his overall job approval rating slipped to 56 percent, down 5 points from April, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

But 58 percent of respondents said Obama and Congress should focus on keeping the budget deficit down, even if takes longer for the economy to recover. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal deficit could top $1.8 trillion this fiscal year -- by far a record.

Nearly 70 percent said they had concerns about federal intervention in the economy, including Obama's decision to take an ownership stake in General Motors and the prospect of more government involvement in healthcare. Obama has made healthcare reform a top priority of his administration.

Just 37 percent of respondents said Obama was taking on too many issues and 60 percent said he had to focus on so many things because the United States was facing so many problems.

While Republican criticism of the Democratic president's policies may be scoring points with voters, the strategy does not appear to be benefiting the party.

A CBS News/New York Times poll also released on Wednesday found the Republican Party viewed favorably by only 28 percent of Americans, the lowest rating ever in the poll. In contrast, 57 percent had a favorable view of the Democratic Party.

The CBS/New York Times poll also found a distinct difference in Obama's overall standing and how Americans viewed his major initiatives.

Obama's job approval rating held steady at 63 percent from the previous poll last month, but fewer than half of respondents approved of how he was handling healthcare reform and efforts to save GM and Chrysler, according to the survey.

The poll also found that Americans were alarmed by the amount of money doled out to boost the economy and a majority thought the government should focus instead on reducing the federal deficit.

Both polls also found a majority of Americans opposing Obama's decision to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal survey of 1,008 adults, conducted Friday to Monday, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The CBS/New York Times telephone poll of 895 adults was conducted Friday through Tuesday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows President Obama's favorability ratings still sky-high but slipping slightly, while former vice president Dick Cheney, seen here during at recent appearance at the National Press Club, appears to be improving his image.Cheneymanual

Of those responding, 60% had a very or somewhat positive view of the president, compared to 66% in January, when Obama took office. Cheney's numbers moved up from 21% in December to 26% today. As our Gannett News Service colleague Chuck Raasch recently pointed out, the former veep has been on a full-court public relations press lately defending the foreign policy and national security efforts of his boss, former president George W. Bush.

The bipartisan team of pollsters who conducted the NBC/WSJ poll, Democrat Peter Hart and Republican Bill McInturff, found that while the president remains personally popular, the public has reservations about some of his policies, especially the administration's decision to take a stake in automaker General Motors.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 33% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -1. Today is the second straight day the President’s rating has been below zero (see trends).

Among those who are politically liberal, 64% Strongly Approve. So do 40% of moderates. However 61% of conservatives Strongly Disapprove (see other recent demographic highlights).

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates also available on Twitter.

Most voters still place the blame for our nation’s economic woes on the Bush Administration, but a growing number say it’s Obama’s economy now. The number blaming Bush has fallen to 54%. That’s down eight points from a month ago.

Consumer confidence, while still up since the beginning of the year, has retreated to its lowest level in two months. For the latest polling updates on other topics in the news, please visit the Rasmussen Reports home page.

Overall, 54% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance so far. Forty-five percent (45%) disapprove. For more Presidential barometers, see Obama By the Numbers.

Americans remain evenly divided as to whether or not health care reform should wait until the economy is better.

Most voters still place the blame for our nation’s economic woes on the Bush Administration, but a growing number say it’s Obama’s economy now. The number blaming Bush has fallen to 54%. That’s down eight points from a month ago.

...blame Bush....

One job of journalists is, to borrow a horse racing phrase, to "call the turns" of developing news. Yesterday, the White House press corps called the end of the Obama honeymoon.

By peppering the President with forceful questions on Iran and other big topics and by challenging some of his slippery answers, reporters captured the changing tone in the country. Like the end of a real honeymoon, blind infatuation is giving way to a more accurate view of reality.

The reality is that polls show rising doubt about President Obama's handling of the economy and wide disapproval about exploding deficits. The reality is that even many Democrats worry the White House health plan is messy and unaffordable. The reality is that ranks of independents who voted for him find Obama far more liberal than they expected.

It's also true that many news organizations have embarrassed themselves with fawning Obama coverage and are the subject of growing ridicule, including from Obama himself.

Those facts all probably played a role in the unprecedentedly aggressive tone of yesterday's news conference. More than anything else, Iran - where the President had been a timid fence-sitter while a democracy revolution was blooming, then being crushed by a thugocracy - galvanized the press to probe. Six of the 13 questions dealt with Iran.

"What took you so long?" was the most important one asked of the Obama presidency. It came from reporter Major Garrett of Fox News (where I am a contributor) and put an exclamation point on the President's failure to respond sooner with appropriate condemnation.

Obama finally found his voice yesterday, saying in his strongest language yet that the world was "appalled and outraged" at the violence against demonstrators. And in calling the video showing the death of Iranian icon Neda Soltan "heartbreaking," Obama succinctly expressed the world's emotion.

But in answering Garrett's question with nonsensical insistence he had been consistent, the President damaged his credibility and missed a chance to explain how his thinking has evolved since the June 12 election.

He blew another chance when a reporter asked whether criticism by Sen. John McCain and other Republicans had forced the tougher stance. "What do you think?" he said, getting defensive and saying, "Only I am the President of the United States."

It's a bad habit, a sign of weakness, to pull rank, yet this White House does it repeatedly. Obama brushed back calls for changes in stimulus spending by saying, "I won," and his press secretary said, "We won," just the other day to a question.

The notion that victory carries a blank check is fantasy. Especially in a polarized country with a nonstop media blitz, a mandate must be re-won on every major issue.

Obama knows as much, which is why he has been running a continuing campaign since the inauguration. Whether he's conducting town hall meetings in St. Louis or France or asking for prime-time coverage, Obama uses the bully pulpit and his charisma to aggressively push his agenda.

By and large, the approach has worked. Thanks to full Democratic control of Congress, Obama mostly gets his way, and his personal popularity has remained strong.

But his health plan could be in trouble over the cost and impact, and unemployment keeps rising beyond White House estimates, a fact the President conceded yesterday. He also conceded that stimulus spending has been slower than he wants, which I took as a jab at Vice President Biden's supposed management of the issue.

The result is that the public hasn't seen much economic gain and, combined with the growing debts and prohibitive costs of Obama's health and energy plans, voters are getting significantly more skeptical about the President. Iran added to the doubts.

The press corps gets it. For Obama, the hard part begins now.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 31% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-three percent (33%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That matches the lowest level yet recorded

It’s been a tough week for President Obama’s cool factor.

Not only is he weathering criticism of his policies, but the Cool One has also taken a few dings to his immaculate image in recent days.

It started on Monday. Speaking at the White House, Obama was just getting into a sharp defense of his economic agenda when one of the teleprompter screens holding his speech crashed to the floor and shattered into pieces.

“Oh, goodness,” said a surprised Obama. “Sorry about that, guys.”

Needing a teleprompter is one thing. But having it crash to the ground mid-speech was, well, a long way from Obama’s on-camera fly-swatting for CNBC. Then, the chief of cool had men everywhere suddenly feeling insecure about their inferior ability to conquer insects.

On Monday, the president's audience snickered, while he didn’t crack a smile, and it took a few moments for him to adjust to reading his remarks without looking to his left, where there was now just an empty pole.

On Tuesday, Obama was put to another test: throwing out his first pitch as president. He had practiced with Reggie Love. He got advice from Willie Mays. But the pitch was a bit of a lob and while it didn’t hit the ground, it also didn’t clear the plate, like Obama had wanted. It was fine. But not the impressive performance some expected from the athletic president.

Even his hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, said he was “lacking in style points on his short southpaw lob to home plate.”

Then there were the Dad Jeans – otherwise known as the Levis Obama sported when he threw out the pitch.

“Did Obama’s stylist come steal them from the closet of Frank Stransky?” a writer for Entertainment Weekly, Tanner Stransky, wrote in a blog post, apparently referring to his own father.

“I suppose President Obama is indeed a father, so we should allow him such a strike against humanity,” the blog continued. “And I guess he couldn't have come out in skin-tight baseball pants (or, rather, why not?) or the suit pants that he normally dons. But my, oh my. I wasn't ready to see him in such an ill-fitting pair of what look like 501s. I thought he was cooler than that, somehow. This humanizing of the President doesn't sit so well with me.”

And in one more embarrassing incident this week, Obama, a stickler for pronunciation, stumbled over the name of his surgeon general-designate's hometown – and had to ask Dr. Regina Benjamin for help pronouncing “Bayou La Batre.”

“Did I say that right?” Obama said. “Tell me how to say…” he said, turning to Benjamin for help, and then trying again: “Bayou La Batre. That’s in Alabama people.”

With one word Monday, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele helped the GOP get back in the fight over health care and the entire Obama agenda. The word was “experiment.”

“Candidate Obama promised change,” Steele said in a speech at the National Press Club. “President Obama is conducting an experiment.” Steele went on to accuse Barack Obama of carrying out dangerous experiments with the nation’s health care, with the economy, with taxpayers’ dollars.

“Experiment” didn’t come from nowhere. “The term bubbled up from a set of focus groups we did with swing voters, independents, soft Republicans and soft Democrats,” says one strategist involved in an extensive RNC research effort nationwide and in key states like Virginia, Colorado and Florida. “It’s something that a vast majority of voters believe is true, that Obama is running what amounts to an experiment with our future.”

The RNC researchers came away convinced that Americans are scared. Certainly voters expected Obama to do things. But they are frightened by the sheer scope of the president’s proposals, the fiscal dangers they present and, perhaps most of all, the astonishing speed with which the administration is trying to enact such fundamental and far-reaching changes.

“When Americans voted for change, it was for a change from the uncertainty and economic unpredictability at the end of the Bush years,” says Alex Castellanos, the Republican message master who helped shape the RNC campaign. “But the president is giving them economic unpredictability on steroids. There is the clear sense out there that he is moving so fast on so many fronts that his health care plan cannot be well thought out.”

You can see those feelings in the latest Washington Post poll in which just 49 percent of those surveyed approve of Obama’s handling of health care. The numbers were eagerly received by Republican leaders on Capitol Hill. “This is a signature issue for him; it’s something he campaigned on, and it’s something that was inevitable in January,” says one key GOP Senate aide. “And now he has less than 50 percent approval on it and independents are running away.”

The more support peels away, the harder Obama pushes. Up until the weekend, he was demanding the House and Senate pass health care bills before the Aug. 7 recess. It was a schedule with no basis in reality, but only now — after Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, one of the moderates asking Obama to slow down, reminded him that it took Lyndon Johnson a year and a half to pass Medicare — has Obama backed away just a little.

But the public understands that he wants to rush, rush, rush, and voters told the RNC researchers that they were tired of the pressure. “Repeatedly,” the Republican strategist says, “we’d hear, ‘Wait a second. We had to do the stimulus in the dead of night, we had to do cap and trade without anybody reading the bill, we had to move quickly on a multitrillion-dollar budget without any serious public debate, and now we’ve got to get health care done in two weeks?’ ”

Republicans believe there’s a real chance Obama will make his own situation worse by pushing too hard. People have heard this sort of thing before. Anyone who’s bought a car, a TV or an insurance policy knows the feeling when a salesman amps up the pressure to close the deal. You need to buy this today, sign the papers right now, don’t wait another minute. When that happens, the smart customer backs off a little: Why is this guy trying to rush me into this? Behind all the focus groups and the message, that’s the simple version of what is happening now, with Obama in the role of the salesman and the American people as the smart customer.

For a long time, it looked as if Republicans were flattened and hopeless while Obama moved from victory to victory. But now, the sense of energy is palpable. The GOP critique of Obama is sharper, its discipline better, its fundraising up — all just seven months after the party got its clock cleaned in both the presidential and congressional elections.

The result of the Obama experiment might not be nationalized health care, but a re-energized Republican Party.

President Obama's approval rating has dropped to 50 percent, according to a poll released Thursday, a new low for the president as he tries to shepherd health care reform legislation through Congress in the next few months.

A new Quinnipiac University poll shows 50 percent of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing compared to 42 percent who don't.

That's the lowest number since Obama took office, and down from a 57 percent approval rating at the beginning of July.

A FOX News poll released July 23 showed his job performance at 54 percent.

The new Quinnipiac numbers suggest the public is losing confidence in the president's ability to guide domestic policy issues, yet retaining confidence in his ability to guide foreign policy.

Voters disapproved of the way he's handling health care by 52 percent to 39 percent, according to the poll. But they approved of the way he's handling foreign policy 52 to 38 percent.

Though his performance rating is down, the poll still showed Americans are more confident in his ability to handle the economy and health care than in the ability of Republicans in Congress.

The survey was taken July 27-Aug. 3 and based on interviews with 2,409 registered voters. It had a margin of error of 2 points.

Sorry, MEM. You live by the polls, you die by the polls.

Reporting from Washington - President Obama, who won the White House with an electoral college landslide and enjoyed soaring public approval in the weeks after his inauguration, has fallen to a 50% job approval rating in the newest daily tracking of the Gallup Poll released Thursday.

The new low for Obama compares with his peak public job approval rating of 69% after his inauguration in January.

The president's sliding approval ratings in the Gallup and other national polls this summer have paralleled growing unrest about his healthcare plans.

Polls also show that Obama has lost support for his handling of the economy, although his approval ratings for handling foreign affairs remain higher.

The loss of support for the president on domestic issues has made it more difficult for the White House to rally support in Congress for his healthcare initiative, with lawmakers looking at midterm elections a little over a year away.

Should the slide continue, Obama would by no means be the first president to drop below 50% in the Gallup Poll, which has been tracking public approval of presidents since Harry S. Truman.

But Obama has reached his new low more quickly than most of his predecessors did, Gallup said. The percentage of people voicing disapproval for Obama's job performance stands at a near-high of 43%.

Aides to the president said he was not fixated on polling data. Obama entered office with high ratings, White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton said Thursday, but never thought they were "something he should put up on a shelf and admire."

"It's real easy to stay popular in Washington if you don't do anything at all," said Burton, adding that the president doesn't believe in working that way.

Slipping below 50% before November of the first year in office would represent the third-fastest drop since World War II, Gallup reports.

President Ford slipped below 50% in his third month; President Clinton hit the mark in his fourth month. Ford's rating was partly spurred by his unpopular decision to pardon former President Nixon in 1974.

It took President Eisenhower five years to fall below 50%, Gallup said. It took Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush each about three years. It took Presidents Johnson and Nixon more than two years.

WASHINGTON -- What happened to President Obama? His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford (post-Nixon pardon)?

The conventional wisdom is that Obama made a tactical mistake by farming out his agenda to Congress and allowing himself to be pulled left by the doctrinaire liberals of the Democratic congressional leadership. But the idea of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pulling Obama left is quite ridiculous. Where do you think he came from, this friend of Chavista ex-terrorist William Ayers, of PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, of racialist inciter Jeremiah Wright?

But forget the character witnesses. Just look at Obama's behavior as president, beginning with his first address to Congress. Unbidden, unforced and unpushed by the congressional leadership, Obama gave his most deeply felt vision of America, delivering the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president. In American politics, you can't get more left than that speech and still be on the playing field.

In a center-right country, that was problem enough. Obama then compounded it by vastly misreading his mandate. He assumed it was personal. This, after winning by a mere seven points in a year of true economic catastrophe, of an extraordinarily unpopular Republican incumbent, and of a politically weak and unsteady opponent. Nonetheless, Obama imagined that, as Fouad Ajami so brilliantly observed, he had won the kind of banana-republic plebiscite that grants caudillo-like authority to remake everything in one's own image.

Accordingly, Obama unveiled his plans for a grand makeover of the American system, animating that vision by enacting measure after measure that greatly enlarged state power, government spending and national debt. Not surprisingly, these measures engendered powerful popular skepticism that burst into tea-party town-hall resistance.

Obama's reaction to that resistance made things worse. Obama fancies himself tribune of the people, spokesman for the grass roots, harbinger of a new kind of politics from below that would upset the established lobbyist special-interest order of Washington. Yet faced with protests from a real grass-roots movement, his party and his supporters called it a mob -- misinformed, misled, irrational, angry, unhinged, bordering on racist. All this while the administration was cutting backroom deals with every manner of special interest -- from drug companies to auto unions to doctors -- in which favors worth billions were quietly and opaquely exchanged.

"Get out of the way" and "don't do a lot of talking," the great bipartisan scolded opponents whom he blamed for creating the "mess" from which he is merely trying to save us. If only they could see. So with boundless confidence in his own persuasiveness, Obama undertook a summer campaign to enlighten the masses by addressing substantive objections to his reforms.

Things got worse still. With answers so slippery and implausible and, well, fishy, he began jeopardizing the most fundamental asset of any new president -- trust. You can't say that the system is totally broken and in need of radical reconstruction, but nothing will change for you; that Medicare is bankrupting the country, but $500 billion in cuts will have no effect on care; that you will expand coverage while reducing deficits -- and not inspire incredulity and mistrust. When ordinary citizens understand they are being played for fools, they bristle.

After a disastrous summer -- mistaking his mandate, believing his press, centralizing power, governing left, disdaining citizens for (of all things) organizing -- Obama is in trouble.

Let's be clear: This is a fall, not a collapse. He's not been repudiated or even defeated. He will likely regroup and pass some version of health insurance reform that will restore some of his clout and popularity.

But what has occurred -- irreversibly -- is this: He's become ordinary. The spell is broken. The charismatic conjurer of 2008 has shed his magic. He's regressed to the mean, tellingly expressed in poll numbers hovering at 50 percent.

For a man who only recently bred a cult, ordinariness is a great burden, and for his acolytes, a crushing disappointment. Obama has become a politician like others. And like other flailing presidents, he will try to salvage a cherished reform -- and his own standing -- with yet another prime-time speech.

But for the first time since election night in Grant Park, he will appear in the most unfamiliar of guises -- mere mortal, a treacherous transformation to which a man of Obama's supreme self-regard may never adapt.

While all the attention has been paid to angry opponents of health care reform at Congressional town hall meetings, a bigger problem for President Obama and his party is brewing among Democrats.

Our latest Zogby Interactive poll of 4,518 likely voters (conducted from Aug. 28-31) found 48% disapprove of Obama's job performance, and 42% approve. The big story lies behind those top-line percentages.

In a similar interactive poll done six weeks ago, 88% of Democrats approved of Obama's job performance. That percentage is now down to 75%, a significant drop of 13 points. Meanwhile, there is only slight change among Republicans and Independents.

Obama has lost even more support among 18-29-year-old voters, whose approval fell by 18 points over that time. The Democrats may be able to count on older, die hard party members to come out and vote, even when they may be disappointed. But those young voters could very easily sour on the Democrats and politics itself if Obama does not deliver on his message of change.

Health care isn't the only issue that is hurting Obama with his Democratic base. The war in Afghanistan is losing popularity, and his handling of detainees and the bank bailout may not be what many Democrats voted for.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – For the first time since he took over in the White House, Americans don't see eye to eye with President Barack Obama on the important issues, according to a new national poll. But the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey does indicate that a majority approve of how Obama's handling his duties as president.

According to the poll, which was released Tuesday, 48 percent of people questioned say that they agree with Obama on the issues that matter most to them, with 51 percent saying no. That's a switch from April, when 57 percent said they agreed with the president on important issues, with 41 percent disagreeing.

"Obama is facing crunch time on a number of controversial issues, from health care to financial regulation to cap and trade to Afghanistan," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "The fact that most Americans no longer agree with him on important issues makes his task harder."

Fifty-five percent of those questioned say they approve of how Obama's handling his duties, with 43 percent disapproving. The 55 percent approval rating is down 3 points from September. Most recent national polls place the president's approval rating in the low to mid 50's.

"Obama continues to do poorly among senior citizens," says Holland. "Most Americans over the age of 65 disapprove of how he is handling his job as president."


The poll also suggests that two out of three Americans say Obama has the qualities a president should have, down 12 points from April - one indication the Nobel Peace Prize may not have helped him much in that regard.

Most Americans, 56 percent, don't approve of the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama, and only a third believe that Obama has done enough to deserve the prize.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted Sunday through Thursday, with 1,038 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.