The latest NBC/WSJ Poll finds the following: Obama's job approval rating was 44%, a new low. However, his personal likeability rating remains high at 70%. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44401295/ns/politics/#.TmYnnIVmQjw I find it interesting in light of the way in which the right wing have attacked him. Specifically, these folks (from the candidates to the talking heads to the sign carriers at Tea Party rallies) have not just been talking about whether he is doing a good job, but have gone after him as socialist, illegitimate, violator of the constitution, taker of vacations, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, etc.-- generally as the kind of person that Americans shouldn't like. After a few years of this stuff, it seems like while people are not happy with the President's job performance (and this comes from the left and the right) and they are certainly unhappy about the economy, most Americans still are not buying this Obama = bad guy narrative. It seems that an effective way to run against Obama would be to do as, for example, Chris Christie, would and go after his leadership style, specific policy or performance. The conpiracy and personal crap are basically counterproductive. However, it does not look like any Republican can even get out of the primary without ranting about Obama being some sort of dangerous terrible person in a deranged/basso-like way.
I like Obama, but he has failed to help the job situation, part of what helped him become elected was that he was super intelligent, and what was happening needed to stop and get better, but he has F-bombed on leadership affecting the economy for the better... But make no mistake I like and admire Obama. He doesn't shrill or scream like a codepink idiot (yes you Gore).
I think most people felt the same about Bush the Younger, too. Of course, that didn't make him a good (or even decent) President.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...tional-policies-at-demints-presidential-forum http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rick...a-senator-2012-presidential/story?id=13481348 http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_102808/content/01125107.guest.html http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0911/Koch_Hussein_Obama.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/31/donald-trump-obama-birth-_n_843056.html
First link is a candidate criticizing policy (which you said was good). 2nd link argues against your premise since that candidate is near the bottom in polling. other links are not about candidates
She talks about the policy not as ineffective or unwise, but "unconstitutional." This is not having a policy debate, but questioning the very legitimacy of the government and the loyalty of the President to this country. Now, whether you think this is explicit or not, it is certainly intended as a Tea Party dog-whistle. Candidiates who don't poll well are still candidates. Especially when they seem legit enough Republicans to be invited to debates. And Rush Limbaugh and the Kochs may not be candidates. However, they are very much highly influential leaders of the Republican party.
The 70% "yeah, but I still like him!" figure is the main thing still keeping the President in play for 2012. It shows that the people, in the main, want him to succeed. This isn't like Bush, Jr. in his second term, when "the people" felt they had given him every chance, and then some, until they came to the conclusion that he was a failure and a goofus, beyond redemption. They don't feel that way about Obama. They're still waiting to see the man they thought they were electing the first time around. Many feel (I certainly do) that he came into office with the nation buried under a steaming pile of crap produced by Bush and his Republican Congress. A steaming pile with nary a shovel in sight or, more accurately, a steaming pile produced by Republicans ("led" by Bush) that, after dumping it on the country, proceeded to lock up the shovels in a storage shed, not to be used now, but to be used by a Republican President, later. The President has tried, again and again, to produce a bipartisan solution to pretty much every problem facing us, with the end result being not enough solutions at all being produced. I would have preferred a partisan Democratic solution to the problems bedeviling us, when a blind man, or woman, could see that the Republican Party in Congress had taken bipartisanship from their dictionary and burned it, but that's just me. Obama attempted to be bipartisan and was rebuffed at every turn. Rebuffed as a matter of party policy by the GOP. Rebuffed with deliberation. I would go so far as to say that Obama has been stymied by a Republican Party that knew it was hurting the country by doing so. Why? Two reasons. To win the next presidential election, and to cater to a radical extremist minority of their own creation, the "tea party," which has evolved into what they wanted it to evolve into, a wing of the GOP, otherwise known as God's Own Party. Now the question devolves into whether Obama will get credit from the electorate for his bipartisan (and often fruitless) attempts at creating policy beneficial to the country, and whether the Republican Party will get blame for blocking those policies, as well as getting blame for largely creating the mad hatters who now call themselves the "tea party," instead of simply Republicans. Will the American people punish the GOP for being a roadblock to bringing the country back from the brink? Will the GOP, with unlimited corporate money from those "people," the corporations declared such by the radical Roberts Court, be able to place blame for the mess they created on the President and his party? Will they buy their way out of paying for what they did, and didn't, do to elevate the nation from what is largely a Republican crisis? We're going to find out Thursday night. Either Obama is going to take names and kick ass, while at the same time producing a plan that is a Democratic solution to the mess we find ourselves in, bipartisanship be damned, and run on it until the election, or we just might end up with a Rick Perry sitting in the Oval Office, wondering if it might be better to lease a more modern home in the Burbs somewhere for the duration. The best case scenario, absent the President's reelection, would be Romney, who, in my opinion, is the best of a bad lot of GOP candidates. Sadly, I don't think the current radical, fundamentalist minority, who love Perry, by the way, are ready to nominate a Mormon. It's an absurd reason not to nominate a guy or gal, but I simply don't see it happening. Thursday night is when the President has to turn away from cutting the budget and produce a spending bill that makes an effective assault on unemployment. He has to do more than simply continue Republican policy, ala the Bush Tax Cuts he said during his campaign that he would let expire, and didn't. He has to do more than extending a payroll-tax break for workers. He needs to propose, for example, a massive infrastructure rebuilding effort that would have a quick and positive impact on the construction industry and the economy. The country needs it. It's all well and good to complain and whine about the massive deficit, but if our roads, bridges, dams, levees are crumbling, while our people are out of work, or are afraid to spend their money, a few hundred billion dollars (which should have been part of a larger stimulus bill a few of years ago) could go a long way towards getting the nation's economy moving. Propose a way to get home loans to the people. The mortgage industry has gone from giving a loan to damn near anyone who walks through the door, to NOT giving loans to people with good credit. And include in the speech sending more billions to the states to help with their own deficits. While Perry is loathe to credit Federal money (and Democratic Policy) for helping the fiscal problems of Texas, that's exactly what happened. It's why the chickens came home to roost in Austin two years later than would otherwise have been the case. Sending dollars to the states would immediately save jobs. Good paying jobs. Middle class jobs. It would also help the disadvantaged, who could use some help. States are cutting their budgets to the bone and beyond. And if the Republicans say no again? Hammer them for it. Over and over and over again. Then do it some more. Just some opinions, folks.
You'd think that the guy would just do, ideologically, what he planned on doing when he was voted into office. I probably wouldn't agree with him, but he'd be a much better President if he acted on his principles instead of compromising to seem bi-partisan. The President is the only person elected by the entire United States. Doesn't that give him a bit more standing than your average member of Congress? I think he's a nice guy, and I'd love to chat and have a beer with him, but I don't think he's going to change. His entire administration will be bogged down because he's being fickle to paint a bi-partisan picture of his Presidency.
1. He actually ran as a centrist. I don't see how his actions as President is that different from what candidiate Obama was. 2. While he might have more "standing" in terms of public opinion, as a matter of running a democratic government, Congress still needs to pass the laws. The way the Republicans have demonstrated an intention not to just sabotage Obama, but to sabotage institutions of the U.S. democratic government itsef, I don't know that a "hard core"-acting Obama would have had more success passing things through congress than "compromiser" Obama. Might make the Democratic base feel good, but probably not all that productive. By the way, I don't even think that using the bully pulpit to rhetorically beat down the Tea Party legislators would have done much. Remember, the political favorability of Tea Partiers ahve sunk even lower than Obama has since the 2010 election, and certainly since the debt ceiling fight. I don't think the Tea Party legislators care that people don't think much of them-- in fact, they prefer Americans hating and distrusting them and transfering their distrust to the entire political system. 3. The way that Obama should play it, in my opinion, is to present himself and his party as the sensible non-crazy choice in the upcoming election: that handing both the White House and the Congress to the Democratic Party is the only way to avoid the Teabagger insanity fundamentally sabotaging the country.
i guess ill say the cold truth american women want to have sex with obama but they do not want to trust the 401 k or economy to obama there i said it likeability = want to sex obamas third leg
Discussing the constitutionality of federal policy is not a personal attack, sorry. You're reaching. But you said it was the only way to get out of the primary, when the only candidate who attacked Obama's character is at the bottom of the polls. Rush is a leader of the conservative movement, not the GOP. And did you bother to read the Koch article? It refutes the point you were trying make. I tend to agree with Rush about Obama's motives, but it's not necessary to discuss them to defeat him in an election. Your reflexive, predictable political posts run counter to your irreverent merry prankster GARM posts. Kind of disappointing.
