The President’s approval rating has taken the largest third quarter slip in history!
by Charlie Leck
According to a Gallup poll, President Obama’s approval rating dropped nine points from where it stood in the second quarter of 2009 to where it is now in the third quarter – from 62 percent down to 53%. It is the largest quarterly drop in approval rating in the first year of any elected President since these things have been measured. Harry Truman had a thirteen point drop between his second and third quarter in office (1945-46), but he was not elected to that term.
The pollsters found that the dominant issue involved in this dramatic drop was health care reform.
Don’t take that to mean that all those displeased folks don’t want health care reform; for, in fact, many of us who disapprove of Obama right now seriously favor health care reform. In other words, among that nine percentage point drop are many progressives who are seriously disappointed with Obama’s proposed health care reform package versus what he promised us in his campaign.
Does that mean we think Obama is less of a good man? Hardly! We think he is not as strong a President as we hoped he would be. The “Yes We Can” side of Obama has become more of a “I Don’t Think We Can” attitude in the current White House. Obama probably sincerely believes that his major compromises will still get us a good health care reform package.
Progressives don’t agree. What we’ll get will be very expensive and it will not be reform. The big pharmaceutical houses and the giant health care providers and the mega health care insurers will still be sitting in the cat bird seat. The American people will still be without a guaranty of total coverage at a reasonable and sensible cost.
It simply isn’t fair. It has cost the President our support.
Add to this a war in Iraq that appears to have no end game and a war in Afghanistan that is calling for 40,000 more troops and you have a recipe for a disastrous first term for a man we all thought would usher in a new era in American politics and history. I am too old a man to be fooled by these things. I remember Vietnam too clearly. I remember Richard Nixon too perfectly.
It’s the same old same old; and it will cost Barack Obama a second term. He will be haunted by chants from the other side: “No you can’t!”
I can remember no President in my life time who so wasted the ammunition he took with him into office.
Rest assured that I do not say this lightly. It makes my heart ache to admit it.
by Charlie Leck
According to a Gallup poll, President Obama’s approval rating dropped nine points from where it stood in the second quarter of 2009 to where it is now in the third quarter – from 62 percent down to 53%. It is the largest quarterly drop in approval rating in the first year of any elected President since these things have been measured. Harry Truman had a thirteen point drop between his second and third quarter in office (1945-46), but he was not elected to that term.
The pollsters found that the dominant issue involved in this dramatic drop was health care reform.
Don’t take that to mean that all those displeased folks don’t want health care reform; for, in fact, many of us who disapprove of Obama right now seriously favor health care reform. In other words, among that nine percentage point drop are many progressives who are seriously disappointed with Obama’s proposed health care reform package versus what he promised us in his campaign.
Does that mean we think Obama is less of a good man? Hardly! We think he is not as strong a President as we hoped he would be. The “Yes We Can” side of Obama has become more of a “I Don’t Think We Can” attitude in the current White House. Obama probably sincerely believes that his major compromises will still get us a good health care reform package.
Progressives don’t agree. What we’ll get will be very expensive and it will not be reform. The big pharmaceutical houses and the giant health care providers and the mega health care insurers will still be sitting in the cat bird seat. The American people will still be without a guaranty of total coverage at a reasonable and sensible cost.
It simply isn’t fair. It has cost the President our support.
Add to this a war in Iraq that appears to have no end game and a war in Afghanistan that is calling for 40,000 more troops and you have a recipe for a disastrous first term for a man we all thought would usher in a new era in American politics and history. I am too old a man to be fooled by these things. I remember Vietnam too clearly. I remember Richard Nixon too perfectly.
It’s the same old same old; and it will cost Barack Obama a second term. He will be haunted by chants from the other side: “No you can’t!”
I can remember no President in my life time who so wasted the ammunition he took with him into office.
Rest assured that I do not say this lightly. It makes my heart ache to admit it.
No comments:
Post a Comment