Get ready for the inevitable denunciations about polling methodology. As I note on many posts about polling, partisans will tout polls they like then denounce or question the methodology of polls they don’t like. Quinnipiac’s polls are highly respected, but I won’t even bother reading many blog posts on this one: conservative blogs will hype it, and many liberal websites will bury it or question it. But what is unquestionable is — no matter how it is explained or spun — a new Quinnipiac poll ranks Barack Obama as the worst President since World War II:
A plurality of voters think Barack Obama is the worst president since World War II, a new poll says.
According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, 33 percent of voters think the current president is the worst since 1945.
Obama’s predecessor, former President George W. Bush, came in at second-worst with 28 percent, and Richard Nixon was in third place with 13 percent of the vote. After Jimmy Carter, who 8 percent of voters said was the worst president in the time period, no other president received more than 3 percent.
The poll’s finding on the best President is hardly surprising: Ronald Reagan’s political stock has been raising in recent years and not just because of his term that included engineering the fall of the Berlin Wall and the going-out-of-business of the old Soviet Union, or the fact that he offered affirmative, positive conservativism versus the truly tiresome talk radio recycled riffs and name calling from many of today’s conservatives and Republicans. Books about the history of the Reagan administration and containing his private writings have enhanced his reputation:
Thirty-five percent of voters said Ronald Reagan was the best president since World War II, receiving nearly twice as many votes as any other former president. Bill Clinton came in second place at 18 percent, while John F. Kennedy came in third with 15 percent of the vote and Obama came in fourth with 8 percent saying he was the best.
All other remaining presidents received 5 percent or less. Five percent of voters said Dwight D. Eisenhower was the best president since 1945, while 4 percent said Harry Truman. Lyndon Johnson and George H.W. Bush each received 3 percent. George W. Bush came in at 1 percent.
Forty-five percent of voters said the U.S. would be better off with Mitt Romney serving in the White House, compared to 38 percent who said the country would be in worse shape.
This suggests that some of the independents and Republcans who voted for Obama have soured on him.
Another fact about this poll holds true: President’s who’ve sunk in the polls usually rank very poorly when their contemporaries assess their standing. Harry Truman is the prime example.
But the undeniable facts are a)this isn’t a good poll for Obama, and, b)it underscores the huge challenge Democrats will have in the mid-terms since Obama’s polls are stuck so that low Roto Rooter may have to be called in. This could well change over time.
Undeniable fact: the poll is not good news for the White House and will embolden those digging in their heels at cooperating with Obama or allowing him to advance his political agenda.
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.