In the last couple of months as the Republican presidential candidates began to tear each other to pieces and the economy began an ever so slight recovery, Democrats have begun to get back some of their old 2008 swagger. The bumpy first years of the Obama presidency followed by a landslide loss in the 2010 midterms had taken its toll on the party. A bad economy and a clear lack of presidential leadership during the debt ceiling crisis last year had left Democrats in the dumps. But the spectacle of the GOP contenders and their supporters and super PACs pointing out each other’s shortcomings cheered them up no end. After a long, hard winter of bad news it seemed that spring was bringing them back some of the hope and change mojo that might lead them to victory in 2012.
Unfortunately for them, the Obama mojo isn’t quite as potent as it once was. A New York Times/CBS poll published today confirms what the ABC News/Washington Post poll that came out yesterday told us: Even in the midst of what seemed to be a strong comeback, Obama is in deep trouble. The president’s approval ratings have dropped dramatically in recent weeks with the public disapproving of his job performance by a 47-41-percentage point margin. This is ominous news for a president at any point in his term in office but coming less than eight months away from his attempt to win re-election, it is a portent of possible disaster.
The president can take some solace from the fact that the Times/CBS poll still gives him a slight advantage over his two most likely Republican challengers in a head-to-head matchup. He leads Mitt Romney 47-44 and Rick Santorum 48-44 though as the paper points out, with a three percent margin of error, that makes either possible matchup a toss-up.
What’s the reason for this decline? Clearly, the rise in gas prices is a major factor. The poll shows that a clear majority of respondents think the president has the power to do something about rising prices. That faith in presidential power may be unfounded. Though Obama’s actions to restrain drilling and cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline has certainly been harmful, he is as much a hostage to a fluctuating oil market as was his predecessor. Rising gas prices fed a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the Republicans in 2008. They appear to be playing the same role this year with the Democrats; that only goes to prove that what goes around, comes around.
But gas prices are not the only reason for Obama’s worries. Though foreign policy appears to be one of his stronger points with the public, that edge is clearly declining as concerns about Iran and the chaos in Afghanistan have undermined his pose as an able commander-in-chief. Killing Osama bin Laden was a good thing and something that rightly earned him the plaudits of the public, but by itself it is not going to get Obama re-elected no matter how many times he and his surrogates mention it.
But though, like any president, Obama’s poll ratings are tied to the ebb and flow of events, perhaps there are other factors. In today’s Politico, Josh Gerstein compiles an impressive list of things President Obama has done without drawing too many protests that his predecessor could not have gotten away with. The laundry list includes actions in the war on terror that highlighted the Democrats’ hypocritical criticisms of George W. Bush as well as Obama’s cronyism, his hypocritical stance on campaign finance and his self-indulgence that has led him to play golf frequently, a sport Politico notes that the 43rd president dropped during his time in office.
Though Gerstein portrays Obama as getting off scot free from actions that would create hurricanes of outrage had Bush done any of it, perhaps the sheer volume of Obama’s hypocrisy is starting to leech into his poll ratings. Americans may not be that enthused about the Republicans in 2012, but during the last four years they have gotten to know Barack Obama pretty well. Despite a mainstream media that continues to fawn upon him and to trash his foes, the best the president can do is to merely tread water at a time when he should be soaring in the polls. That’s a sign that once he is faced with a single GOP challenger and a united opposition (something that must be acknowledged as not being a given) he may be in bigger trouble than even his cheerleaders at the Times think.
The news is much worse for Obama than these numbers show. This is an an adult poll, not even a registered voter poll — let alone a likely voter poll. Democrats do worse as you proceed to poll along this spectrum from adults to registered to likely voters, owing to sampling and question biases that usually favor liberals and Democrats.r nr nPlus, of course, the most useful polls now are state polling in battleground states, since this is after all a 50-state election.
> Obama is in deep trouble. The president’s approval ratings have dropped n> dramatically in recent weeks with the public disapproving of his job n> performance by a 47-41-percentage point margin. This is ominous n> news for a president at any point in his term in office but coming less n> than eight months away from his attempt to win re-election, n> it is a portent of possible disaster. n n"Deep trouble?" nThe election is eight months from now, and most of the trends driving his approval ratings have been going Obama's way since September. The drop over the past week seems to be almost entirely attributable to soaring gas prices. I would be more worried if his job approval had collapsed starting in early February when the birth control debate started, but it seems to be (at worst-) a non issue so far. n— nIn these highly polarized times, Obama certainly does not have much margin for error. But if oil prices go back to normal and if the economy keeps generating 200,000+ new jobs per month, I would bet Obama wins a second term. n nMARCU$
IF….IF…..IF… to quote and old Jewish proverb, If my grandmother had wheels, sh'ed be locomotive. In effect ,there are too many variables to predict accurately the election. What we do know is that the democrats were thrashed in 2010 and most of the reasons for this debacle are still with us- excessive spending, anti- business hositlity, foaming at the mouth at the mention of more drilling and, of course, a very weak recovery.So, for now, all the polls are snapshots but the trend is actually anti-Obama.
As to whether any President can do much about gas prices, we have to put this excuse out of its misery: there is plenty that a President can do (and not do) that can greatly affect the price of gasoline. n nFirst and foremost we have to keep in mind that the price of oil is set by a *market.* All markets fluctuate based upon *perception.* If, for example, there is a widely held perception that war may break out in Iran that may restrict oil supplies (i.e. scarcity) then oil prices obviously go up to price in that risk. But perception works both ways. When there is a widespread perception that there will be new and increasing amounts of oil coming on the market, particularly from stable areas of the globe (i.e. abundance), the price of oil comes down. In this regard, when a U.S. president talks about not being able to drill our way out of high oil prices, a clear signal is sent to the markets that the U.S. will not be increasing production any time soon. When those statements are backed up by a hold on Gulf drilling permits, the blockade of new Alaska drilling or any, other drilling for that matter, markets rightly price that in. n nSecondly, there are short term and long term policies that can greatly affect the price of oil and gas. In the short term, lifting regulatory burdens, incentivizing new production and development, encouraging the use of abundant natural gas for transportation and fast-tracking drilling permits and permits for new refinery capacity would send important signals to the markets that the U.S. is serious about ramping up production and reducing its demand for oil. Markets react quite readily to this type of signaling, particularly when it is backed up by action and not merely words. In the long term, the Keystone pipeline, ANWR, oil shale and a host of other projects can restore the U.S. to its prior position as a major (if not *the* major) oil producer. A recent article by Robert Zubrin in National Review Online gives a compelling picture of how the U.S. could regain its lead in oil production over the long term (i.e., 5-10 years). n nThe main point is that Americans want real action to develop and benefit from our unbelievably abundant hydrocarbon resources. The ridiculous assertions by Obama that there's nothing that can be done to affect the prices of oil and gas ring absolutely hollow and he is rightly suffering in the polls as a result. By the same token, if the GOP does not push aggressively for pro-energy policies, the public is going to punish them at the polls as well.
other drawbacks for an Obama reelection are: 1) the great number of foreclosures with Govt aid for homeowners minimal over the last three years of Obama's presidency [not to mention ACORN's partial responsibility for the foreclosures on account of its demands years ago for subprime mortgages]; 2) the real unemployment rate, that is, those who stopped looking for jobs are not counted as "unemployed" by the official statistics. nThe foreclosure problem is so bad that France24 has been running a series of shocking feature stories on it.