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Posts Tagged ‘Few Days’

Obama Approval Bounce Over: Gallup and Rasmussen Show Declines

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

President Obama May Need To Tap his "Superman" Skills to Push His Approval Ratings Back Up to a Majority of Americans in the wake of the historic passage of Obamacare

After the historic passage of President Barack Obama’s signature initiative, Obamacare, the President received a bump in approval in the two main daily tracking polls, Gallup and Rasmussen. Obama reached as high as 51% approval (amongst all adults) in Gallup, while he reached a peak of 49% (amongst likely voters) in Rasmussen last week after passage of the Obamacare package. Today, the results taken for the three day period of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday show President Obama again on the decline, sliding to 48% approval/45% disapproval in Gallup while declining to 47% approval/53% disapproval in Rasmussen.

These results may be somewhat of a shock to the DC political and media establishment, as the “conventional wisdom” of almost all Democratic politicians and establishment media reports has been that President Obama would receive a sustained and significant increase in his popularity after the passage of the historic Obamacare package.   In addition to the polls noted above, the post-Obamacare passage polling by well-respected Quinnipiac University cut against the claim of any significant bounce for Obama at all, as Quinnipiace found Obama to be underwater at 45% approval/46% disapproval in the two days following the historic House passage of Obamacare after finding Obama at 46%/49% immediately before the passage.

President Barack Obama's long term trend of declining approval by the American public appears to have not been broken by the passage of Obamacare

Indeed, the small bump and ongoing dissipation of same in Obama’s approval after the passage of his signature initiative is quite similar to the brief bump Obama received after his State of the Union (“SOTU”) address in late January 2010. The SOTU bounce peaked a few days after the speech and was completely dissipated in about 10 days, and it appears from today’s Gallup and Rasmussen numbers that a similar pattern is occurring in the wake of Obamacare’s passage.

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Change: Obama Reverses March 18 Deadline, Delays Asia Trip for Obamacare

Friday, March 12th, 2010

President Barack Obama has now delayed his trip to Asia and backed off his March 18 deadline for House action on Obamacare

The AP has just reported that President Barack Obama is delaying his trip to Asia to focus on passing Obamacare, despite strong claims by the Obama Administration that a House of Representatives vote must occur by March 18.   Now, the AP reports that Obama will not leave until March 21, making the March 18 deadline inoperative. The latest reversal of an Obamacare deadline set by Obama or one of his top officials is another in a pattern of false deadlines set by the Administration starting last summer. In a prescient article, CNN points out yesterday that the now-inoperative deadline is one of many set by the Obama Administration:

Washington (CNN) — President Obama has set them — and they’ve repeatedly been missed.

But with Easter recess coming, Obama’s latest deadline to pass health care reform legislation could be his last one.

Over the summer, as the health care reform battle was brewing in Congress and at town hall meetings across the country, the president called on both the House and Senate to pass legislation by the end of August in order for a comprehensive bill to see its way to his desk by the end of the year.

That didn’t happen.

Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration are now struggling to produce 216 votes in the House of Representatives for Obamacare. The latest procedural trick proposed by Democrats is “Amending a Ghost” by having the House create a “rule” that “assumes” the Senate bill has been passed by the House already, and then have the House members vote on changes to the Senate bill, not the Senate bill itself. Such procedural trickery is “unprecedented” in American history and the next few days will determine whether Democrats will push forward with the “Amending the Ghost” strategy or instead simply have an up or down vote on the Senate bill in the House.

UPDATE: NPR adds some details, including a tweet by Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman:

A “alert” from the Associated Press:

“Obama delaying Asia trip from March 18 to March 21 to work on health care.”

The president’s trip will take him to Indonesia and Australia. We’ll update this news as the story develops.

Update at 9:10 a.m. ET. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs just “tweeted” that:

“The President will delay leaving for Indonesia and Australia – will now leave Sunday – the First Lady and the girls will not be on the trip.”

Sunday must mean March 21.

This news is not exactly a surprise. As The New York Times’ The Caucus blog wrote yesterday, “with President Obama’s health care bill hanging in the balance, the White House is facing intensifying questions about whether Mr. Obama should take his planned trip to Indonesia and Australia next week.”

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Obama To House Dems: Please Save My Presidency

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

President Barack Obama today asked leftwing House Democrats to Save his Presidency by voting for Obamacare

In a high-stakes meeting at the White House, President Barack Obama reportedly pleaded with a set of far-left House Democratic Representatives to vote for passage of the Senate health care bill in the House of Representatives. Many of the Dem House attendees are leaning against voting for the Senate bill for various reasons. TPM describes the scene at the White House today:

President Obama’s message to progressives who are dissatisfied with the Senate health care bill is two fold: First: Don’t forget about the uninsured. Second: Don’t forget what failure to pass this bill would do to the party and my presidency.

In a meeting with House progressives today, Obama made the pitch.

Speaking to reporters in the Speaker’s lobby off the House floor, Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) said the President reminded them that “If this opportunity passes, much of our agenda, on the progressive side…it would be difficult, if not impossible for a generation to get back to this issue.”

I asked if the message was convincing to those in attendance.

“It’s pretty compelling,” Grijalva said.

That’s a significant change from his tone earlier in the week, when Grijalva said he was inclined to vote against the bill from the left.

Obama reminded the assembled Democrats that doing nothing would be politically disastrous. “To maintain a strong presidency we need to pass this bill,” the President said, according to Grijalva.

Directly on the heels of Obama’s meeting last night at the White House with center-leaning House Democrats, today’s gathering and the leaked substance of Obama’s plea to those in attendance demonstrate the lack of a majority of votes right now in the House for the Senate bill. No Republicans will vote for the Obamacare package, while about two dozen centrist House Democrats have already announced their opposition, and a few far left progressive House Dems are announced no’s as well. The next few days could be decisive in the White House drive to push the Senate Obamacare package through the House and achieve the largest reform of the American health system in history.

UPDATE: Hotair has a different take on the meeting than TPM.

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