Obama Is Losing His Base

[Danno 1,228]

Yeah I know it is sleezball ####### Morris but the Numbers are what they are and his predictions do come to pass, as much or more than most talking heads

Obama Is Losing His Base

by ####### Morris and Eileen McGann

09/02/2009

The polls this week are a disaster for Barack Obama. Scott Rasmussen has his approval dropping to 45 percent, after several weeks at 49 percent. John Zogby has it even lower -- at 42 percent.

Beneath the superficial data lies even worse news for the president. Not only is he losing support, but he is losing his political base. Young people -- under 30 -- long a key element of his support, give him no better than break-even ratings with 41 percent approving and 41 percent disapproving of the job he is doing according to Zogby. And only 75 percent of Democrats, who have supported Obama strongly in the past, now approve of the job he is doing.

Zogby reports that this low approval by his fellow partisans represents a slide of more than 10 points over the summer. Even blacks are becoming tepid in their backing for Obama, with only 74 percent approving of the job he is doing (also a drop of more than 10 points). Hispanics, who voted for Obama by a margin of more than 40 points, now break even, 36-36, on their rating of his job in office.

Independents, the key swing group in our politics, now deliver a sharply negative 37-50 verdict on Obama's performance in office, and the elderly also give him negative ratings by 42-51.

Now that Obama, weakened with lower ratings, confronts his party in Congress, he has few good options.

He obviously cannot get 60 votes for his health care proposals in their current form. No Republican will support them, and it is unlikely that moderate Democrats will vote with him.

If he tries to pass the program with 50 votes using reconciliation procedures, he may also fail. Most likely Democratic Sens. Byrd, W.V.; Conrad, N.D.; Lincoln, Ark.; Pryor, Ark.; Nelson, Neb; Bayh, Ind.; and Landrieu, La., and independent Sen. Lieberman (Ct) would oppose such a move and others -- like Hagan, N.C., Feinstein, Calif., Johnson, S.D.; and Dorgan, N.D., might be right behind them. Stripped of moderate support, it is unlikely that Obama will be able to push through so radical a program with a bare 50 votes.

And if Obama waters down his proposals to attract Republican and moderate Democratic support, he will probably begin to lose votes on the left, endangering his prospects in the House and perhaps adding to his dilemma in the Senate.

Finally, the longer he takes to resolve this political problem, the more his ratings will continue to slip and his power to achieve any resolution will diminish. No president with support in the 30s will be able to push through a program like health care.

Historians will record that health care reform crippled the Obama presidency, as it did Bill Clinton's in 1993. Of course, Clinton was able to move to the center and secure re-election in 1996, but one wonders if a true believer like Obama would have such ideological flexibility. He has shown a willingness to move to the center on foreign policy, leaving troops in Iraq and adding them in Afghanistan. On the domestic front, only on education policy has he been willing to embrace centrist positions.

By the end of September, he'll wish he stayed in Martha's Vineyard!

[PlatyPius 5]

Obama was still a better choice than an animated corpse and a Fundi Barbie doll....

[Pooky 3,844]

Neither candidate in 2008 was the right choice for the country. But the electoral system here is designed to weed out the right choice in favour of the "best chance of winning" choice.

Only the Republican'ts couldn't even get that bit right.

[Danno 1,228]

Obama was still a better choice than an animated corpse and a Fundi Barbie doll....

You are right,

as it turns out, he was the best option for both parties.

The Dems in the short the GOP in the long.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Neither candidate in 2008 was the right choice for the country. But the electoral system here is designed to weed out the right choice in favour of the "best chance of winning" choice.

Only the Republican'ts couldn't even get that bit right.

Maybe they just didn't want to deal with the very mess they creaetd?

[Joseph & Ana 0]

I wonder in 2012, when things are even more worse than today, if the libs will still be blaming others for their problems.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Its not a good time to be in politics (or banking or real estate) at this point.

I wonder why

Edited September 8, 2009 by Private Pike

[dalegg 143]

I wonder in 2012, when things are even more worse than today, if the libs will still be blaming others for their problems.

Of course, because if its even as bad as it is now for just another year they won't have a filibuster proof senate and they will have to actually start paying attention to Republcians more and make compromises they don't want. If things remain worse then they can blame those compromises for the lack of progress.