Poll: December 2009 Finds Obama and Democrats Weakening
A new poll finds yet more bad news for President Barack Obama and the Democrats, as the White House starts to show signs of defensiveness. When a politician or partisans of either party blast polls that don’t make them look good — trust us, on this one — it isn’t being done with a pristine intent to improve the pollster’s methodology.
The latest via McClatchy Newspapers:
President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party end the year far weaker than they started it, according to a McClatchy-Ipsos poll released Tuesday.
Obama has the lowest approval rating of his presidency – 49 percent – slipping below 50 percent in the poll for the first time and entering a danger zone for presidents heading into a midterm election year.
The sinking numbers extend to his party as well. The Democratic Party has lost double-digit ground to the Republican Party on every issue, including the economy, other domestic issues such as health care and foreign affairs.
On the economy, for example, it clings to a 1-point edge over the Republicans, down sharply from the 31-point advantage it enjoyed a year ago.
Underlying it all: a sour mood. The American people have the worst view of the country since Obama’s election, with just 36 percent saying it’s on the right track and 60 percent saying it’s on the wrong track.
The numbers show how much Obama and the Democrats have lost since their triumphant victory a year ago, when they won the White House and added to their majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The figures also underscore the challenging environment they face as they head into 2010, when the House and a third of the Senate are up for election.
“The public is declaring the honeymoon over,” said Michael Gross, the vice president of Ipsos Public Affairs, which conducted the polls.
The biggest drag is the economy, Gross said.
Earlier, as the Christian Science Monitor notes, the White House dissed a Gallup poll that Obama and his supporters are not exactly touting far and wide:
The editor in chief of the Gallup Poll on Tuesday defended the value of opinion polls in general and explained away White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ earlier criticism of Gallup’s latest presidential poll as a reaction “to the fact that the president’s approval numbers are not stable.”
The Gallup report Monday showed President Obama’s approval rating at 47 percent, the lowest mark yet for his presidency.
Mr. Gibbs, speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, appeared irked by the poll, saying, “I am sure a 6-year-old with a crayon could do something not unlike that.” He continued: “I don’t put a lot of stake in, never have, in the EKG that is the daily Gallup trend. I don’t pay a lot of attention to the meaninglessness of it.”
Gallup’s editor in chief, Frank Newport, issued a measured response to Gibbs’ criticism on his blog.
“It’s not unusual for politicians to react to polls,” he wrote. “I’ve certainly seen it many times over the years, particularly when elected representatives or candidates are confronted with poll results they don’t like.”
Newport said in his blog he is “certain Gibbs didn’t intend to impugn the value of presidential job approval polls in general. It appears he was reacting more to the fact that the president’s approval numbers are not stable, but, in fact, in a period of some change. More specifically, Gibbs was reacting to our report Monday highlighting the fact that, while there was a short-term positive uptick in Obama’s job approval ratings after his Afghanistan speech last week, his ratings through the weekend fell back.”
The bottom line is that — as is the case with Republicans and Republicans in the new and old media as well when a poll looks unfavorably upon their sports team political side– if it had shown Obama in a positive light, the White House would be citing it to rebuff mentions of other polls that show Obama losing some support. Trending is what matters…and Obama’s trending is NOT GOOD at this point. Just look at Pollster.com’s graph of polls:
3 Responses to “Poll: December 2009 Finds Obama and Democrats Weakening”
Its also the lowest of any president at this point in their administration.
Gallup stated taking these polls 71 years ago, the results:
– George W. Bush, 86 percent
– Bill Clinton, 52 percent
– George H.W. Bush, 71 percent
– Ronald Reagan, 49 percent
– Jimmy Carter, 57 percent
– Gerald Ford, 52 percent
– Richard Nixon, 59 percent
– Lyndon Johnson, 74 percent
– John Kennedy, 77 percent
– Dwight Eisenhower, 69 percent
– Harry Truman, 49 percent
Bush got a bump in the aftermath of 9/11 so he doesn't make a fair comparison here, but the others do. Obama is dead last, his should dispel the notion of any “mandate”. The voters simply rejected Bush, now they see what they got and aren't very thrilled, at least at this juncture.
Obama and the other Dems in Washington have nobody but themselves to blame. We were willing to give them a surprisingly large amount of leeway or scope, with stimulative measures for the economy, and to a lesser extent with regulation (though more, specifically, with banks). They have failed to do what was expected of them, while creating much controversy for lunging much farther left than the mainstream ever wanted, and compounding ineptitude and play-pen dress-up games (and sometimes more sinister or bad things) by ObamaCo with pushing for obviously bad legislation and policy, which is the farthest possible thing from a “mandate” other than imagined (nothing more, really) by the far Left.
All is not lost. Obama has three more years to go. First comes pulling out of the nosedive he and the Dems are in now (it doesn't help to choose a power dive with “climate” legislation and related nonsense, before any antics at Copenhagen). Then comes a needed bigger recovery before the 2010 elections. They could still hope to make gains if they correct themselves, otherwise they need damage control.
He's in HT's neighborhood, and that ain't bad.