One of the most readily understandable political calculus equations is the presidential poll: as long as a president is above 50% in the polls, he continues to hold a majority; but if he falls below 50%, he becomes increasingly irrelevant. The nation is no longer behind him. The lower he gets under 50, the more irrelevant he becomes.
Six months into the Obama presidency, Americans are already starting to say, “You see, Barry, it’s all a question of mind over matter. We no longer mind because you no longer matter.”
For what it’s worth, the first time President Bush dipped below 50% according to Rasmussen was February 2004. So Barry has to have set some kind of record for “sucking speed.”
Democrats and liberals feasted on George Bush like a herd of swine feasting on a trough full of carrots. And in the case of the Barack Obama presidency, suppertime is coming very, very early.
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Friday, July 24, 2009
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 30% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8 (see trends).
Just 25% believe that the economic stimulus package has helped the economy.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates also available on Twitter.
Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. Today marks the first time his overall approval rating has ever fallen below 50% among Likely Voters nationwide. Fifty-one percent (51%) disapprove.
Eighty-three percent (83%) of Democrats continue to approve of the President’s performance while 80% of Republicans disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 37% offer a positive assessment. The President earns approval from 51% of women and 47% of men.
These updates are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. Most of the interviews for today’s update were completed before the President’s nationally televised press conference on Wednesday night. The first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the press conference will be released on Sunday.
Zogby has Barry Hussein at 48%.
Now, the last paragraph of the article becomes interesting because this means the poll does not take into account Obama’s truly suck performance at his July 22 press conference or the subsequent flap over his racially biased and frankly incredibly stupid comment about the Cambridge police “acting stupidly” in arresting an emotionally out-of-control African-American Studies professor.
So the easy money is betting that Sunday we’re going to see Obama down even more. And then more.
Hot Air has a couple of insightful paragraphs describing the poll’s nuances on just why Obama is starting to poll as badly as he is:
It marks the first time that Obama has gone underwater since he started his remarkable run for the presidency in early 2007. Undoubtedly, voters have now put the responsibility for the economy squarely on Obama’s shoulders after six months of worsening indicators. The steep decline in support for his health-care bill represents in part a lack of confidence in his ability to deliver after the failure of the massive stimulus package, which he promised would put America back to work.
Even the Democratic gender gap has mostly been wiped out for Obama. Although crosstabs are not available on daily tracking reports, Rasmussen’s poll shows an approval rating of 51% among women, just two points above the overall average. If Obama had hoped to maintain the traditional Democratic inroads with women with his focus on health care, that appears to have backfired, as the survey on that issue earlier in the week showed women opposing it by a 50%-46% edge, with men more clearly in opposition at 53%-44%. Why? Pluralities among both genders believe that their personal coverage will get worse under ObamaCare.
Unemployment is at 9.5% – and is expected to rise to 10% and beyond by the end of the year. That sure isn’t going to help Obama become “Mr. Popular.” And if that isn’t bad enough for him – and for the country he’s misleading – a new employment forecast by Obama’s own Federal Reserve foresees high unemployment numbers for at least the next five years.
But wait, as they say: there’s more. Respected Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney predicts that unemployment will rise to 13% or higher. She’s the analyst with the nickname, “The woman who called Wall Street’s meltdown,” so right now I’m giving her more credibility than Obama’s people who said that if their stimulus passed unemployment wouldn’t rise above 8%.
And there’s yet even more. We don’t calculate unemployment the way we used to. We used to calculate unemployment based on the number of people who would like to have a full time job but don’t have one. Bill Clinton changed the way unemployment was tabulated. But if this were in the 1980s, we would be reading about 16.5% unemployment. And if THAT number doesn’t frighten you enough, how about the possibility of 20% by the end of the year?
Remember all the talk about Barack Obama being compared to FDR?
Now we’ll get to celebrate Obama-as-FDR right – with Great Depression levels of unemployment, which will likely lead us into another Great Depression. The first FDR didn’t fare so well with the first Great Depression; and I think the second FDR will do an even lousier job.
It will be fun watching Barry “ride the slide” to political hell.
It won’t be so much fun watching the Late Great U.S.A. sliding into economic hell right along with him.
Start Thinking Right 