President Barack Obama continues to endure a steady slide in his approval rating amongst all American adults as Gallup revealed yesterday that, for the first time in his young Presidency, more Americans disapprove of Obama’s job performance (47%) than approve (46%). Gallup, of course, has been a left-leaning pollster for many years now and, despite President Obama reaching this historical milestone of more disapproval than approval amongst all Americans, Gallup has not issued any form of article or press release regarding their own data. The chart from Gallup to the left shows the slow but steady deterioration of Obama’s approval and building disapproval since Inauguration Day.
Further, well-respected Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling (“PPP”) also now shows Obama underwater with the American people for the first time, at 47% approval and 48% disapproval amongst American registered voters. PPP’s director Tom Jensen, who it should be noted was one of the few pollsters to accurately predict Republican Scott Brown’s victory in January 2010, discussed his polling and the first net negative showing for Obama in the Gallup measure, pointing out that Obama is now losing core supporters who delivered him the Presidency:
Barack Obama dropped into negative territory in Gallup for the first time today, and I can tell you one big reason why from our polling.
Since the calendar turned to 2010 there has been a noticeable drop in Obama’s approval among people who say they voted for him in 2008. Our monthly surveys from August to December found him at anywhere from 89 to 93% approval with his original voters. Our January to March polls have shown that number down in the 83 to 85% range.
Most of Obama’s approval drop over the course of 2009 was the result of people who voted for John McCain but initially wanted to give Obama a chance shifting from approval to disapproval of him over the course of his first year. That was really no big deal for Obama and a perfectly normal thing to happen to any President once the honeymoon is over. But this drop in support he’s seeing now from his core supporters is a more troubling sign and something he’s going to need to overcome.
A final troubling trend for President Obama, who has prioritized the environment during his Administration so far with his push for “climate change” legislation, is the historical decline in Americans who prioritize environmental protection over economic growth as “for only the second time in more than two decades and the second straight year, Americans are more likely to say economic growth should take precedence over environmental protection when the two objectives conflict (53%) than to say the reverse (38%).”
Taken together, the Obama Administration’s focus on the unpopular comprehensive health care bill and the environmental measures such as cap and trade appear to be causing Obama to now lose core supporters who put him the White House in 2008. Indeed, it appears to us that the President’s overall job approval is moving down, while the support for Obamacare is moving up slightly, and the two numbers may be destined to meet somewhere in the low 40% range. As the tension builds over the Obama plan to use procedural trickery in the House (“Slaughter Solution”) and the Senate (reconciliation) to pass Obamacare, the continued move of former core Obama supporters away from the President may have an impact on the all-important vote just days from now.
President Barack Obama's Approval (all-time low) and Disapproval ratings (all-time high) with the American People
UPDATE: Gallup decided, finally, to actually issue a report on Obama’s sliding approval ratings, noting that Obama is at an all-time low in approval and an all-time high in disapproval and even points to the obvious cause – Obamacare:
PRINCETON, NJ — President Barack Obama’s job approval is the worst of his presidency to date, with 46% of Americans approving and 48% disapproving of the job he is doing as president in the latest Gallup Daily three-day average.
Obama’s approval rating has hovered around 50% since November, but in the last two days has declined to the point that slightly more Americans now disapprove than approve of his performance in office.
The new low ratings come during a week in which the White House and Democratic congressional leaders are working to convince wavering House Democrats to support healthcare reform, which they hope to pass using a series of parliamentary maneuvers in the House of Representatives and Senate.
President Obama Giving Opening Remarks at Today's Health Care Summit
Halftime (three hours in) has been reached at the much-hyped health care summit, and the first half mainly focused on the GOP and Obama going back and forth, mainly talking past each other than to each other as both sides recited their prepared scripts and talking points, with GOP Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tn.) declaring that “We believe we have a better idea” on health care reform. At this point, neither side appears to have gained an upper hand from the proceedings, although the issue of comprehensive health reform (Democrats) versus incremental health reform (Republicans) has been made explicitly clear. Obama summed up the proceedings to the press on the way to lunch by stating that “legitimate philosophical differences” were exposed in the first half of the summit as reported by ABC’s Jake Tapper:
The president said that he believes there are areas where they are finding agreement, but did not out right answer a reporter’s question if he believes the first half of the summit had made progress yet.
“”I think we’re establishing that there are actually some areas of real agreement. And we’re starting to focus on what the real disagreements are,” Obama said, “ If you look at you know the issue of how much government should be involved, you know the argument that republicans are making really isn’t that this is a government takeover of health care but rather than, we’re insuring or we’re regulating the insurance market too much.”
The president called this a “legitimate philosophical disagreement” that he hopes to explore more in the afternoon sessions.
As noted earlier, a minor dust up over equal time between Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky) and President Obama culminated in an Obama quip that his time doesn’t count towards the equal division between the parties “because I’m the President.” Vice President Joe Biden interrupted Obama mid-sentence at one point to contradict the President and House Member Eric Cantor (R-Va) and argued that no serious philosophical difference existed between the parties over federal insurance regulation. GOP Senator John McCain (R-Az) got in a few rhetorical shots at the odious process around Obamacare to date, pointing out a few of the backroom deals between special interest groups and the President as well as deals with individual Democratic Senators. Obama reacted testily and scolded McCain, at one point advising the Senator that “the campaign is over” in reference to Obama’s victory over 2008 GOP Presidential nominee. An early dispute between Obama and Alexander over whether Obamacare would cause premiums to rise appeared to be a draw, with both sides making arguably accurate arguments based on the same data.
Obama also introduced two new talking points during the first half: analogies of health insurance to car insurance and health insurance regulation to the government’s regulation of food safety.
Finally, before the meeting began, Obama gave a cryptic response to a reporter’s shouted question, do you have a “Plan B”, which may have been in reference to the WSJ story last night which claimed the White House is preparing a scaled down, approximately 250 Billion Dollar plan (as opposed to the 950 Billion of the present Obama Health Plan). The AP reports the exchange:
A month after the Massachusetts election that cost Democrats their Senate supermajority and threw the health legislation in doubt, the White House has developed its own slimmed-down health care proposal so the president will know what the impact would be if he chooses that route, according to a Democratic official familiar with the discussions. That official could not provide details, but Democrats have looked at approaches including expanding Medicaid and allowing children to stay on their parents’ health plans until around age 26.
The slimmer backup plan was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Obama himself hinted at a Democrats-only strategy. When asked by reporters as he walked to Blair House if he had a Plan B, he responded: “I’ve always got plans.”
The Politico is also reporting that Obama intends to abandon all bipartisan negotiations on Monday of next week, so it may be that the WSJ was false and Obama intends to attempt to push his comprehensive plan through the Senate via reconciliation after the summit.
UPDATE: Ed at Hotair finds an interesting tidbit from Harry Reid this morning, saying on camera in his initial speech that “no one has talked about reconciliation.” Even the left wing new media site TPM called Reid’s statement “obviously not true.”
As Ohio goes Democrat, Barack Obama has swept to victory tonight to seize the right to become the 44th President of the United States. CentristNet congratulates President-Elect Obama for his incredibly innovative and successful campaign and strong victory over John McCain. In the end, despite all the discussion of a new map, the same state that denied John Kerry victory four years ago awarded victory to Obama: Ohio. The Republican brand was so heavily damaged over the past four years that Ohioians and Pennsylvanians simply could not countenance another four years of GOP control of the Presidency.
The key issue for centrists now is how President Obama will govern. Independents and centrists are hopeful that Obama will choose to govern from the center, notwithstanding the leftist rhetoric that has sometimes emanated from Obama. A serious move to ratchet up federal control over the economy, such as nationalized health care, oil companies and/or auto companies, could deepen the ongoing economic slowdown. A centrist policy of keeping spending in check while avoiding large tax hikes would allow for a quicker recovery. Governing from the center would allow for recent gains in Iraq and Afghanistan to be consolidated and American military credibility to be enhanced upon those gains. A move to a quick withdrawal from Iraq would probably destroy the credibility built by our recent military success in Iraq and encourage other states to engage in military adventurism.
In the days, months and years to come, America will determine whether or not the vote for change, and Barack Obama, was a wise choice. Should Obama govern from the center in a pragmatic fashion, the Obama presidency would enhance American leadership of the world and solidify America’s place as the world’s leading power. If Obama goes strongly left, the Obama presidency could be seen historically as a turning point in world history when America went from being the exceptional leader to being just another country in a multipolar world.
Never in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average has the index risen more than 500 points in a single session. After last week’s historic largest weekly percentage loss ever, today the greatest one-day rally in the history of Wall Street occurred, with the Dow Jones average rising almost 1000 points to close at about 9400, up 11%. One key question on everyone’s mind tonight is whether the rally will last or if is the last gasp of the bull market that disappeared last week. The other key question is whether McCain can use this rally to get past narrative of defeat that has smothered his campaign since the crisis began.
Most political observers agree that the race between Obama and McCain for the presidency turned from a near dead heat in mid-September into a substantial 7 point Obama lead today because of the crash of the U.S. and world financial markets. The freefall in McCain’s popularity has been greatly assisted during the economic crisis by McCain’s early mishandling of the crisis via his oft-repeated line that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” Many independent and centrist voters were turned off by McCain’s stubborn refusal to accept the depth of the problems in the economy and now lean towards Obama.
The final straw to put many swing voters onto Obama’s side was the quarter ending 401K reports which show striking declines in most Americans’ retirement accounts that came in the mail in the past week or so. Whether the nearly 1000 point rally can turn this trend around will be determined in the days to come.
The onus is clearly on McCain to perform in the upcoming debate and use the turning economic news to his advantage quickly and perhaps avoid the imminent landslide facing him today. Obama can also point to his steady leadership as pleasing to Wall Street and further highlight McCain’s erratic performance in the past month.
Over the past few days, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, has come under scrutiny across in a dozen battleground states regarding their voter registration activities. The most high profile government move to date in this election against ACORN is the FBI’s raiding of Nevada’s ACORN office last week. Today, the scrutiny on ACORN’s voter registration methods continued with election board hearings in all-important Cuyhoga County, Ohio, which encompasses Cleveland.
Tomorrow, the next shoe will drop as a lawsuit in Ohio will initiate a wide-ranging RICO action against ACORN and its subsidiaries. RICO is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and it provides for extended penalties for criminal acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization while also providing a civil cause of action for those injured by violations of the act. The “organization” is ACORN and its subsidiaries, and the criminal acts are the forgery of voter signatures as reported in various states nationwide.
The Obama campaign’s response to the GOP claims of ACORN ties has been uneven at best to date. First, via the “Fight the Smears” website, Obama claimed that he never trained any ACORN workers nor worked for or with ACORN at any time. Almost immediately, evidence of Obama’s representation of ACORN in a voter registration lawsuit in the mid-90’s and multiple published reports of Obama’s training of ACORN organizers surfaced, along with evidence of an $800,000.00 payment to an ACORN subsidary from the Obama campaign this summer. A video of Obama himself stating he’d worked side by side with ACORN for years and will do so indefinitely also reinforced his longstanding ties. Predictably, Obama’s website was then alterered to state that Obama was never a paid employee of ACORN, implicitly conceding the misrepresentations of the initial statement denying any Obama ties to ACORN.
With the new high profile RICO action coming tomorrow, “ACORNgate” could be the first major scandal of the general election. Before now, both Obama’s (Ayers, Wright, Rezko) and McCain’s (Keating) scandals have been rehashings from either the primaries or past campaigns. How the Obama campaign deals with the coming media firestorm tomorrow upon the filing of the action against ACORN could decide the election as ACORNgate may be the last, best chance for McCain to gain traction against Obama in the presidential race.
The effect on the presidential race is could be significant. Centrists and independent voters have little tolerance for explicit fraud by either side in electioneering. Obama is pulling away from McCain in the head-to-head national race presently, now standing at his highest lead of the campaign of about 7%. If McCain can effectively tie Obama to ACORN, those independents and centrists now leaning to Obama may take a second look at McCain and put the race back to a dead even contest going into the final few weeks of the campaign.
In a stunning move only attempted once in presidential election history, the Obama campaign today finalized a deal to purchase an entire half hour block of broadcasting time from a major network. CBS sold Obama a half hour of time on Wednesday, October 29th, starting at 8:00PM. It appears Obama will present his closing argument to the American people in this fashion as negotiations are also ongoing with NBC and Fox for a similar half hour block of evening broadcasting.
The news of Obama’s strong network buy comes at time when John McCain’s campaign stands at its nadir and possibly its last legs. Three of the four debates are over, and both instant polls and later larger surveys of each debate show the public siding with the Democratic ticket. More troubling for the McCain campaign is the strong voter move to Obama over the past few weeks as world’s stock markets have steadily sold off with no end in sight. Indeed, today’s selloff of the Dow Jones Industrial Average pushed below 9000, the first time the Dow Jones has seen such depths since August of 2003, to close at 8,579.19. Over 20% of of the Dow Jones has been lost in the past seven trading days, nearing the 22.6% selloff on Black Monday in 1987.
Obama’s purchase of blocks of primetime network time follows in the footsteps of Ross Perot in 1992, the only prior presidential candidate to buy such half hour blocks of network time. In 1992, Perot purchased blocks of time on NBC and even beat some of the other networks for ratings at the time. Considering Obama’s popularity, Obama’s primetime show will undoubtably beat Perot’s numbers and perhaps all other competing broadcasting.
The move into blocks of network time comes on the heels of Obama’s purchase of an entire satellite channel, Channel 73, on the Dish TV network last week. Channel 73 is looping an effective two minute Obama economy ad entitled Barack Obama’s Plan for America. The fundraising advantage of the Obama campaign enables such large and unprecedented media buys and sets up Obama for a strong closing message.
Against that backdrop, the McCain campaign continued with a focus on Obama’s relationship with ex-terrorist William Ayers and explaining McCain’s debate night proposal to buy up mortgages directly and renegotiate them downward with the homeowners. Neither initiative appears to have picked up steam, and the media narrative continues to be dominated by discussion of Obama’s surge in popularity since the economic crisis began.
Centrist, independent and moderate voters are moving strongly towards Obama, and McCain has yet to find the right message to stem that tide. Considering the shocked reaction of many Americans to the recent stock market collapse, and Obama’s skillful linkage of this crash to the GOP as the market’s “final verdict” on GOP’s economic policies, no message may fit the bill for McCain.
McCain now stands nearly 10 points behind in most national tracking polls, with the esteemed Gallup tracking poll showing Obama with a commanding, campaign-best 11 point lead, 52-41%. State polls are following suit, with McCain at his lowest support level of the campaign in battlegrounds such as Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. With only one debate to go and less than four weeks until election day, the McCain campaign is teetering on the edge of a collapse in support which would result in a electoral landslide not seen since Reagan’s victory over Mondale in 1984.
Quick takeaway from the 2nd presidential debate – Obama claimed specifically that U.S. government invented the computer, and Obama was very wrong. The computer was developed over a long period of time, and by most historical accounts trace back to Europe with British and German inventors in the late 19th and early 20th century for the conceptual idea of a computer. For a functioning machine, most historical accounts point to a Iowa State University professor and his graduate student:
“I have always taken the position that there is enough credit for everyone in the invention and development of the electronic computer” – John Atanasoff to reporters.
Professor John Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry built the world’s first electronic-digital computer at Iowa State University between 1939 and 1942. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer represented several innovations in computing, including a binary system of arithmetic, parallel processing, regenerative memory, and a separation of memory and computing functions.
Neither CNN, MSNBC nor Fox News have mentioned this so far. We’ll see if it develops in the days to come.
Both candidates excelled in a night of debate filled mainly with recited stump speeches that were largely unresponsive to moderator Gwen Ifill’s questioning without any major gaffes. The key question going into the debate was whether Sarah Palin could reestablish her credibility after a series of missteps in interviews. Palin clearly met that bar and avoided what could have been a support meltdown on the Republican side if she had tanked.
Biden was knowledgable and forceful in his policy discussions, especially in the foreign policy discussions. Thematically, Biden did his job by linking McCain to Bush and demonizing Bush in an effective manner. Palin survived on foreign policy issues and excelled on tax and energy issues. Thematically, Palin did her job and by reinforcing McCain’s image as a maverick and linking Obama to higher taxes, more government and a loss in Iraq. From an objective point of view, both candidates did what they set out to do and the debate was essentially a tie.
The initial pundit reaction was predictable: CNN and MSNBC called it for Obama, Fox News called it for Palin. However, even the CNN “analysts” agreed that Palin swept aside credibility questions with her performance and boosted GOP morale and any threat of Palin “dragging down” McCain was erased. Predictably again, the focus groups set up by CNN and Fox News split in their reaction. CNN/Opinion Rsearch’s instant poll shows a 51-39 Biden victory, with 84% believing Palin exceeded expectations and 64% believing Biden exceeded expectations. with 55% Fox’s text message poll went for Palin, 86-12.
As for undecided voters, CBS’s poll of undecided went to Biden, 46-24%, with 55% stating their view of Palin improved. Importantly, CBS’s poll 18% of the undecideds are now committed to Obama, while 10% of the undecideds are now committed to McCain. If this takeaway from the VP debate holds, with Obama gaining more than McCain from undecideds, the McCain campaign will continue to slide in the polls.
Regarding the impact on the presidential race, most soft McCain voters who were concerned about Palin’s recent interview performances were likely part of the 84% in CNN’s poll who believed Palin beat expectations. The question becomes how independents and conservative Democrats react to the debate over the next few days. These groups strongly dislike Bush and Palin did condemn the Bush Administration several times and talked about looking to the future instead of backward.
With the second Obama-McCain debate set for a week from now, McCain is likely to become much more aggressive attacking Obama should the House pass the bailout package passed by the Senate yesterday. McCain has a set of commercials relating to the GOP’s version of the cause of the economic crisis – failure to control Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – set to be unleashed once the House acts.
The media often talks about the great Right Wing Attack Machine, and Hillary Clinton often warned that Obama would not be able to withstand a full-on assault. Expect the GOP and third party groups to unleash “Greek fire” on Obama on both the economic crisis and his character issues (Wright, Rezko, Ayers, Marshall, ACORN, etc.) as soon as the bailout passes. The only way that McCain can win this election at this point is to return the focus to a referendum on Obama’s fitness for office instead of the quality of the Bush years.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin takes on Senator Joe Biden tonight in the one and only Vice Presidential Debate in this year’s presidential campaign. The GOP ticket has much more on the line tonight than the Democratic ticket as McCain-Palin has dived in the polls ever since the economic crisis took center stage about two weeks ago. The tail of the tape favors Biden, and the public expects Biden to win by a small margin.
Tonight’s debate will probably boast the largest national television audience for any night of the campaign so far, as the first Obama-McCain debate unperformed ratings wise last Friday night. Palin has a platform to talk “over the head” of the media directly to perhaps a majority of all likely November voters. 34% of likely voters report that tonight’s debate is “very important” to their vote, with another 38% percent claiming it is “somewhat important”.
A chance to turn the tide could not come at a better moment for McCain-Palin as the situation is dire, with the public favoring Obama’s handling of the bailout and a steady slide in both national and state polling. Indeed, in mid September McCain-Palin seized a tiny one or two point lead in the national polling average, and Obama-Biden has since surged to a six point lead, with only 6-7% undecided.
Making a comeback improbable is the historical trend of voters (less than 5%) changing their choice for president after the end of September. For instance, in 2000, the defectors from Bush and Gore after September canceled each other out. In 2004, Bush received a slight net gain from defectors, about 1% of the national vote as Bush lost 2.8% of his September voters and Gore lost 4.2% of his. Even if McCain-Palin can take a net 2% of the national vote from present Obama supporters, the GOP would have to take 75-80% of the undecided vote just to tie.
Against that backdrop, Palin steps into the spotlight again tonight. The McCain campaign is relying upon Palin for a third time to revive their campaign. First, McCain used suberfuge to pick her out of the blue as VP the night after Obama’s convention speech, limiting Obama’s momentum boost. Second, Palin delivered a solid convention speech in the face of mixed expectations, partially powering McCain’s move to a small lead in mid-September.
Now, the McCain campaign has come under severe criticism for its mishandling of Palin’s press availability and overall strategy. By keeping Palin away from press scrutiny, the strategy ensured that even small mistakes with the press would be magnified and the press would dig relentlessly into her background. The media narrative has caricatured Palin in negative terms in recent weeks, epitomized by the Saturday Night Live brainless bimbo version. While many of the media accounts of Palin dirt have been debunked, polling suggests that the negative press narrative is dragging down her favorability. The media is now discussing how Palin is a net drag on the ticket.
Many of the undecided voters are moderates and centrists with no strong party affiliation. Palin will likely try to play to these undecided, independent voters tonight with a focus on her reform record and blue collar roots. A major gaffe, or even a minor one, will feed into the present narrative.
Tonight is Palin’s chance to connect with the voters directly. Nothing less than a big win tonight for Palin both in the post-debate polling and the pundits (at least a majority) will reverse the strong momentum built up by Obama during the economic crisis. For only the second time in American history, tonight a woman will take part in a general election vice presidential debate and the stakes could not be higher.
President Barack Obama continues to endure a steady slide in his approval rating amongst all American adults as Gallup revealed yesterday that, for the first time in his young Presidency, more Americans disapprove of Obama’s job performance (47%) than approve (46%). Gallup, of course, has been a left-leaning pollster for many years now and, despite President Obama reaching this historical milestone of more disapproval than approval amongst all Americans, Gallup has not issued any form of article or press release regarding their own data. The chart from Gallup to the left shows the slow but steady deterioration of Obama’s approval and building disapproval since Inauguration Day.
