Obama’s Approval Ratings Tank, But Media Still Love Him
Posted on July 9, 2009
It is amazing how failure can make people
lose hope in Mr. Popularity’s promised change.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week (see trends).
Thirty-nine percent (39%) now give the President good or excellent marks for handling the economy while 43% say he is doing a poor job. Those are by far his lowest ratings yet on the economy … Overall, 51% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance so far. Forty-eight percent (48%) now disapprove.
Wow, Barack! Looks like you own the recession! The ol’ days of blaming Bush seem to be over.
However, the real message in these numbers has less to do with politics and more to do with the fact that this President’s fate will be determined by the economy. … So, when you’re thinking about the potential impact on the 2010 elections, the key question is what will the economy be like next year at this time. If the economy recovers, jobs are being created, and GM is doing well, the President’s numbers will be up. If the economy is still struggling, unemployment is high, and GM is seeking more bailout money, then the President and his party will have a difficult fall.
The folks that are fleeing are independents.
Obama retains extremely strong support from Democrats, and
earlier this year lost much of the Republican support that followed a
giddy Inauguration. It is the independents who appear to be currently
on the move: Obama dropped 6 percentage points last week from the week
before in Gallup’s tracking poll, and Quinnipiac University found a
5-percentage-point drop in approval from independents between early
June and early July. Recent state polling shows drops over longer
periods.A Quinnipiac University poll of voters in economically troubled Ohio,
released Tuesday, showed Obama’s approval rating slipping 8 points, to
below 50 percent, from a poll two months earlier, with a plurality of
48 percent of independent voters disapproving of his job performance.
A Public Policy Polling survey in Virginia found Obama’s approval and
disapproval numbers effectively tied, with independents disapproving
of the president’s job performance, 52 percent to 38 percent.“That is fairly consistent with all our polling around the country —
Obama tends to be really well-liked personally, but he’s starting to
lose a majority of the independents,” said Public Policy’s Dean
Debnam. Democrats have “had long enough in some voters’ minds that
they’re getting blame for nothing happening, and Republicans are
scaring them around health care and tax increases.”
If things don’t turn around soon, Barack Obama’s failure will doom the
Democrats. They
know it too!
Something has the Democrats feeling the heat. Obama’s
dropping poll numbers, especially among independents, have to have
moderate Democrats worried about being seen as a rubber stamp for
Obama’s big-spending policies. The Blue Dogs exist in large part
because they convinced conservative voters that they could trust
Democrats to maintain fiscal sanity better than the Republicans they
replaced.The news from pollsters and constituents look pretty bad for Democrats
looking towards a midterm election in the middle of a deep recession
and escalating unemployment.
Despite the drop in popularity, Obama’s main fanclub (the media) are doing their job of making
him look good. Obama can still count on the media’s
support.
The world’s most powerful media moguls are “very bearish”
on the economy, but they don’t seem to be blaming President Obama for
the tough times, Rupert Murdoch says.Apart from Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, both owned by News
Corp., the media “remains very supportive of him, perhaps not of all
of his policies,” Murdoch told Stuart Varney of Fox Business Network.Speaking during an interview with Varney on Thursday at the Allen &
Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, the News Corp. chairman and CEO
also criticized the stimulus bill that was supposed to have juiced the
U.S. economy.“Some of the stuff he had to do and is correct,” Murdoch said. “But
basically the methodology, which is saying, well, here is $800 billion
or whatever, let Congress work out how to spend it. I think that’s
crazy. I think that leads to tremendous waste.”Murdoch said he was “shocked” at the sour mood media executives are in
regarding their own businesses and the economy in general. Some, he
said, are predicting “five years at least” before seeing real economic
growth return.He predicted that, positive press not withstanding, opinions among
Americans about Obama could sour significantly by year’s end if the
economy doesn’t improve.
Looks like the public mood is already souring. Unbelievably there is
chatter about a second stimulus package!
» Filed Under Democrats, Economy, Fiscal Responsibility, Journalistic Malpractice, Journalistic Prostitution, Liberal Media/Bias, News, Polls, Recession/Depression, Socialism, liberalism
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5 Responses to “Obama’s Approval Ratings Tank, But Media Still Love Him”
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“Obama tends to be really well-liked personally,”
Remember back in the day when Bush was that guy that you wanted to have a beer with? I don’t get the whole, “people like him” thing. Nobody hates the president just for the sake of hating him.
The truth is, I don’t know him. I don’t work or live with him, so there’s nothing to like or dislike, outside of the fact that I can’t stand his style of governance.
Why even forward the idea that folks “like” him?
The “really like him” was the media’s way of explaining – dismissing actually – Bush’s popularity. Between the media, the Dem’s, and Bush’s lack of true Conservatism the country abandonded him and the media threw rocks at him and cheered the process along.
But with Obama that event will never happen – as Chris Matthews said it’s his job to make Obama successful. For a Democrat successful doesn’t mean success for the country, it means success for Democrats. And yes, they are mutually exclusive.
Let the press adore him and keep telling the “emporer” how beutiful his clothes are. He will look more and more foolish to the common folk (those of us held in contempt by the enlightened) and the rest of the world but will take no steps to change because of the bubble that surrounds him. This will be his down fall ultimately.
There is no Media, just another part of the leftist propaganda arm-over at the White House for BBQ with the boss on the 4th of Jul.
If it keeps the Dodd/Kennedy plan from passing then I’ll be happy about this. The damage that would do to the bond market and the economy long term can’t be understated IMO. Other than that I see very little to cheer about the Republicans have shown they are no better.