The bump has been dumped: as voters conclude that the U.S. is back to the same old gridlock, manufactured crises and partisanship, and amid news of sequester budget cuts, President Barack Obama’s polling numbers are tumbling back to earth, according to the latest Reuters/IPSOS Poll:
Less than two months into his second term, President Barack Obama’s approval rating has dropped and Americans blame him and his fellow Democrats almost as much as his Republican opponents for a fiscal mess.
A Reuters/Ipsos online poll released on Wednesday showed 43 percent of people approve of Obama’s handling of his job, down 7 percentage points from February 19.
Most of that steep drop came in the week to February 26 when it was becoming clear that Washington was going to be unable to put aside partisan differences and agree to halt automatic budget cuts which started last Friday.
Is this deja vu? After the 2008 election, it became clear the GOP’s strategy was to try and check mate Obama and the Democrats at every turn. And as the public became increasingly pessimistic about a)things getting done b)a silver bullet for partisanship and c)Obama being able to deliver, 2010 came around, GOPers were motivated and some disappointed Democrats decided to sit out the election or teach their party and lesson and not vote. And they did teach their party a lesson: Tea Party Republicans essentially took control of Congress. Are we seeing the beginning of the same narrative here?
Confounding the White House’s efforts to blame Republicans for the cuts, most respondents in the online survey hold both Democrats and Republicans responsible.
Obama shot out of the gate in January at the start of his second four years in the White House, promising gun control and immigration legislation as well as efforts to tackle climate change and expand gay rights.
But Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said the survey shows Obama’s honeymoon is now over, partly due to the “sequestration” cuts which will likely curtail public services like air traffic control and national parks as well as funding for the Pentagon.
“People are seeing things are back to business as usual in Washington,” she said. “They are reading about the immense fallout this is going to have in terms of how it’s going to affect the military and individuals.”
Thirty-eight percent of Americans believe all the political actors involved – Republican and Democratic members of Congress along with Obama – deserve most of the blame for the cuts.
Twenty-seven percent think Republicans in Congress are responsible, 17 percent blamed Obama and 6 percent thought Democrats were to blame. Nearly half of independent voters, 49 percent, said both sides deserve the blame.
“I think this frustration is being reflected certainly in their view of the president and Congress as well. This is a pox on everyone’s house really,” Clark said.
The problem is: Republicans in Congress already have the “pox” so they had no where to go but up. Now Obama has the “pox” and he is going down from a healthy poll rating. It’s easy to conclude that the big game of chicken now being played between Congressional GOPers and Obama is political chicken pox — both sides being infected. But if the trajectory of past years is any guide, it’ll take some doing for Obama to turn it around since Republicans will conclude they’re on the right path and Obama is growing weaker by the day. All they have to do is to hold out — and play more check mate.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.