Two Dubious Mileposts
July 24, 2010 -The Obama administration passed two mileposts in the latest Wenzel Strategies polling that show it is speeding down the highway – but in the wrong direction.
The latest nationwide telephone survey shows that fewer thatn 40% of Americans now give Obama a postive job approval rating. Just 39% said they think President Obama is doing a good or excellent job. Meanwhile, 58% said they think he is doing either only a fair job, or a poor job.
While 23% said they think he is doing an “excellent” job, 45% said he is doing a “poor” job, (“excellent” and “poor” are the two most extreme choices available to respondents and measure the most intensity among respondents to the poll), giving Obama a Minus 22% index number, one of the worst of his presidency.
And, 19 months into his presidency, the survey shows that even a significant percentage of Democrats are growing skeptical of the president’s performance – just 80% of Democrats give Obama a positive job approval rating, and fewer than 50% of Democrats give him an “excellent” mark for his leadership. This should be alarming news for the White House, because those respondents who are giving the President only “good” marks for his work may soon slip to “only fair,” moving them from the positive to the negative column.
Why should this concern Obama? Because, while he has already shown a penchant for ruling against the will of the American people (pushing health care reform through Congress though a wide majority of Americans opposed it), Congress will eventually stop listening to him if his poll numbers get too low. There is plenty of evidence right now in the polls that Congressional Dems should have stopped listening to Obama a long time ago – as American voter backlash is about to give control of Congress back to the Republicans.
The second milepost is the percentage of Americans who said they think the country is headed in the wrong direction. For the first time in the Obama administration, fewer than 30% (29%) said they think things are on the right track in America.
There are a lot of reasons for this – the continuing economic trouble chief among them. But then add to that the lingering anger over health care, the long-distance frustration over Obama’s inability to deal effectively with the oil spill in the gulf, even at some points blocking the efforts of locals to counter the effects of the spill. I think you also need to add in the frustration that the federal government under Obama seems driven to stick its nose into many areas of American life where it does not belong – including the Arizona state law that deals with illegal immigratioin. People appear to have the sense that America is not working, and they are blaming Washington.
Some bright news in the latest Wenzel Strategies poll – Congress maintains a job approval rating of 17%. Yes, that is bright news – only because it did not slip even further. Another poll out this week had their approval all the way down to 11%.
A day may come again when Americans look to Congress and the White House and have positive thoughts, but that day appears not to be coming anytime soon.
