For all of the talk about Obama being a very popular President, it appears that the message is off track. With Obama's job approval rating tanking due to the health care message flailing, we must inevitably compare him to his predecessor. And when we take a look at the 'much hated' George W. Bush we find something very, very peculiar.
Obama is well behind.
When you take a look at the Real Clear Politics approval index, he trails the former President by thirteen points. Reminds me of a post that Tim wrote. Considering that Bush was elected with less than 50% of the vote in a contested election, this should be a shot across the bow for the Obama Administration. It reveals some of their limitations.
1. Obama drives up the 'strongly disapprove' column. He's been angering many on the right and center, driving up the deficit and calling for more state control. Bush's policies early in his adminstration painted him towards the center, including No Child Left Behind and approval stem cell funding.
2. Obama is hanging on to his image. Rather than actually building an effective policy resume, Obama is simply just seen as a caricature of a President. The pop culture image of him being 'cool' still permeates, and he might have to hold onto the approval of 18-29 year olds for any sort of sanctuary.
Obama's in trouble. We'll see how much in a few months.
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6 comments:
I must say!!! Bush left Obama in one of the worst economical situations of all time, with a brink of another depression. That is like comparing Calvin Coolidge to Herbert Hoover... just doesn't work. Also Bush had to deal with 9/11 which united a lot of Americans over the fight on terror and gave him a higher approval rating. Then the last year of Bush and even now he has gone almost completely off the radar.
The economic situtaion you speak was made much, much worse by Obama. 9/11 is still 3 weeks away so Bush has not yet benefited.
The economical situation was made from the last several presidents where America was living in the now and not for the future. This has finally added up over the years to where there isn't any future. There should be a balance between infrastructure and the practical money making ways but since the last few presidents have been living in the now our infrastructure is starting to weaken causing something no other president has faced. The war exhausted any surplus we had into what a 8 trillion dollar debt? Try being president when the economy and the U.S. has that much debt and many major corporations are failing.
Chad, you're right that we can't keep spending. That's why Obama should be cutting costs, not exploding the budget with Cap & Trade, or an unwieldy Health Care overhaul. Health Care Reform must happen, just not now and not the way the President is making it.
In regards to infrastructure, that's where a lot of Obama's Stimulus went to (the part that I supported). Unfortunately, the President didn't take out the pork that is partially sinking the economy.
Uh, Chad? remember the "dot com bust"? Bush had his own economic woes to deal w/ even before 911 kicked the legs out from under the Market.
O and his libby racist buddies (yes, assuming people need "special" mortgage programs just because they're black *is* racist) in congress who forced banks to make bad loans are much to blame for the current fiasco.
Not to mention that if he weren't freaking the market out w/ all the wild assed spending we'd be abotu out of this mess by now, as opposed to still sliding (albiet slower) in deeper. The need to force the {koff} "stimulus" package through in such a hurry was largely in part due to a hint of recovery in the housing market. God forbid people find out they could have recovered on their own, if the gummint had just stayed out of the way.
Ptfah.
I will admit that Obama has gone overboard with these stimulus packages because he is doing them all at once. If he faced issues one at a time this wouldn't be a big deal. its the fact he is trying to completely change everything in a short period of time instead of just changing a few things slowly. If only he focused more on the real problems instead of creating a major health care scare.
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