Going Up.
I have several uber conservative friends, and these are good friends, not just acquaintances I tolerate at social functions. I saw some of them at a Christmas party this past weekend, and eventually the topic turns to politics. The wonderful truths I learned from these guys was: 1) the economy under George W. Bush was wonderfully glorious, the best boom period this country has ever seen; 2) President Obama is the worst and most unpopular president in the history of multi-cell organisms and he doesn’t want to even run for reelection because he he knows he is so bad; 3) Vice President Biden is the dumbest man ever to inhabit public office, Democrat or Republican; and 4) the nomination of Mitt Romney will doom the Republican Party to destruction, but the nomination of Newt Gingrich will result in a massive landslide… in favor of the Republican Party.
At some point during the evening, I made a remark about Republicans being wholly ignorant and stupid, and they disagreed!!!
Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say that everyone was entitled to their opinions but not to their own facts. Fox News and conservative radio have taken that axiom and disproved it. In the minds of Republicans like my friends, the above statements are true facts, unchallengeable or open to debate. I used to have wonderful debates with these friends on email over politics. Those debates are no longer possible, as I told them, as it is hard to argue with someone who thinks Bush’s Great Recession was a glorious boom period.
Anyway, it is usually after confrontations with the horribly ignorant that I despair for this country and the human race. And then I see polls that make me happy. CNN just released its latest public opinion survey with new approval numbers for President Obama. The numbers are 49% approval and 48% disapproval. This is almost identical to the numbers just released by a new ABC/Washington Post poll, that has President Obama at 49% approval vs. 47% disapproval.
“President Barack Obama’s approval rating appears to be fueled by dramatic gains among middle-income Americans,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “The data suggest that the debate over the payroll tax is helping Obama’s efforts to portray himself as the defender of the middle class.”
Obama’s gains have come at the expense of the Republicans in Congress and the GOP in general. By a 50% to 31% margin, people questioned say they have more confidence in the president than in congressional Republicans to handle the major issues facing the country. Obama held a much narrower 44% to 39% margin in March.
And the GOP’s overall favorable rating has dropped to six points, to 43%, since June, while the Democrats’ positive rating remained steady at 55%.
“The Democrats do particularly well among middle income Americans, while the Republicans win support only from the top end of the income scale,” adds Holland.
This finding was confirmed by ABC/Post, in which 50% of Americans said President Obama would be better for the middle class than the Republican party, and only 35% said Republicans cared about the middle class.
One very revealing thing one of my conservative friends said to me was that his top political priority was what was going to befit him personally and make his own personal wealth larger. This conservative friend is probably in the top 5% income wise, and he said he didn’t give a damn about the middle class or the poor. And I shot back: which is why, when Republicans like you are honest about what you want, you lose elections by large margins, because there are more of them than you.
I wonder if noted brainiacs David Plouffe and David Axelrod will notice that when Obama stands firm against Republican craziness, his approval goes up?
“when Obama stands firm against Republican craziness”
That’s not a done deal yet. So far it is just sound and fury. I can’t think of a time when Obama has actually stood firm in the end.
You’d think just once, a piece of legislation would have an outcome that left Republicans sobbing and rending their garments. Maybe the Senate rejection of the Ryan budget counts?
He has blinked so many times in the past when the public was on his side that i just expect it now. 75% say make the wealthiest pay their fair share did the Dem’s stand with them on this present bill
Hell NO majority wanted Universal health care or at the lease single payer Did the Dem’s stand with them Hell NO.We all wanted the Bush tax cuts repealed and what did the Dem’s do continued them . I am just about to give up on this party at least the Teabaggers as dumb as they are at least they stand by their principals that is if we assume they have any
So the Dear Leaders poll numbers are going up even as he ratchets up the police state at home and his killing machine in Pakistan. Apparently, you’d would vote for Kim Jong Il if he were a Democrat.
Obama and his yellow dog supporters are two reasons that I “despair for this country and the human race.”
maybe youll get a chance to vote for Ron Paul, A1
Your hypocrisy is amusing to me, A1. You are as dogmatic and inflexible in your hatred of Obama as you claim I am in support of him.
Really, Del Dem? And why do you advocate unwavering support someone who believes in imprisoning people without charges or due process? Or in using the state to assassinate people? Or torturing people? Or killing innocent people in secret wars?
Are these the new American values? Are these things that American attorneys should support?
Yes, I unabashedly hate and detest all of the things I listed above. And I will never again vote for someone like Obama who I know actively supports and practices them. I hope someday you’ll join me.
Yeah. He’d vote against cherry pie for dessert if it was being served by President Obama.
I think A1 even hates himself.
You see, A1, this is where you are a complete and total idiot. I do not advocate unwavering support for the President. I criticize him when I feel the need to. But then I look at the whole picture.
Opposing Obama as vehemently as you do means you directly support the election of Republicans. Yes, that is the way it works in our two party system. I know independents and unaffliateds will cry foul, but if you oppose the election of one party then you support the election of another. That is just the way it is.
So, knowing this, I support the President, who, in the big picture and on the whole, has done more to advance liberalism and progressivism in this country since FDR. Yes, it’s true. Look at the huge laundry list of legislation and executive orders he has signed and issued.
Do I hate indefinite detentions? Sure. It is one of the things I criticize Obama on.
The other things you list I don’t have a problem with. I have no problem with our government assassinating our enemies on foreign soil, like Bin Laden or Al Queda operatives. No problem at all. And the War on Terror is not a secret war. We have been talking about it for years. In fact, I prefer fighting Al Queda covertly rather than with a massive expensive invasion.
Finally, you mentioned torture. Obama ended torture by executive order. I guess you think he is lying, right.
Breaking: Anonone will not vote for Obama.
Moving on.
I know. But sometimes I still have to address his comments.
The third choice is opposing the election of both parties candidates, but you can’t seem to get your mind around that as a legitimate choice because you are too entrenched in the two-party system. Indeed, it is your online identity.
Obama is destroying the Bill of Rights in this country. His failure to prosecute the torturers of Bush administration has essentially legalized torture. He is still running CIA black prisons; and who knows what is going on in them. He is killing hundreds of innocent Pakistani’s with drones. Innocent people
Atrios said it well:
“I’m reasonably sure we wouldn’t be sending drones over, say, Stockholm to kill terrorist cells with surgical precision while accidentally oopsie killing a couple of thousand other people.
But we apparently do that some places.”
Killing innocent brown people by remote control in a poor country should be a war crime.
Spending over $100 billion to chase down a few hundred terrorists in a country with a GDP of $27 billion is ludicrous. Having American soldiers being killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan while Vice President Biden says that the Taliban are not our enemy is preposterous.
Except for John Anderson, I have voted Democratic for President my whole life. I have been doing GOTV for Dems for decades. No more. Not this year. Maybe not ever again.
Kunicich-Paul for life!!
The third choice is opposing the election of both parties candidates, but you can’t seem to get your mind around that as a legitimate choice because you are too entrenched in the two-party system.
That’s not a choice – it’s a fantasy. In the end, one side will win the Presidency – and it won’t be some mythical 3rd party savior. That is reality.
You don’t like that? Fine, but stop pretending there’s another legitimate choice. There isn’t.
Besides, we tried your way in 2000. How’d that work out for ya?
I never said I expected a third party candidate to win, did I pandora? What I said was that opposing the election of both party’s candidates is a legitimate choice in a democracy. Do you disagree with that?
Maybe you should stop pretending that Obama isn’t leading a bipartisan effort to destroy the Bill of Rights and civil liberties in America.
pandora, it is nice to know that you are embracing the republican narrative of the 2000 election. I am glad it worked out for you.
For someone so very sensitive to labels you sure do throw them around. Republican narrative, indeed.
What you want A1 is for everyone to join your party. Every comment you write is designed to try and shame people into agreeing with you 100%. 90% isn’t enough. Truth is… nothing is ever enough for you.
If you’re ashamed for supporting Obama when you know what he is doing, then you can stop. In 2008, I sent him money, did GOTV, and voted for him twice. I am not ashamed of that. I was lied to. So were you.
And, for the record, Nader did not cost Gore the presidency. A corrupt Florida and SCOTUS did.
And you’re right; I was wrong. It isn’t just the republican narrative; it is the partisan democratic narrative, too.
The tyranny of absolutism is a sad thing to behold. If A1 could only channel his righteous anger into something productive, we’d all be happier. His Obama jihad is like shaking his fist at the clouds.
A better outlet for his disgust would be to join D’s4K and help me elect Carney by on vote.
A1, Our puny arms are too short to box with the two party system. Let’s pick on someone our own size.
I am but a small drop in a largely empty bucket.
There is another drop for you. His boxing arms are slightly longer.
President Obama’s in a second term will be less fitful than his first. The agenda that Obama ran on was totally upended by the economic crisis of late 2008. That was the game changer. Remember the DOW dropped 6000 points. Most all the biggest banks and brokers were dead. The insurance company that insured a lot of the risk, AIG, was insolvent. President Bush declared an economic “emergency”. So let’s get real. Obama focused rightly on the financial fires. By no fault of his own, the Obama agenda was reset by crisis not design. A tough way to come to the White House. Administer TARP, design a recovery program, save the auto industry. None of that was in the works during the 2007-08 campaign.
Even so, we got the Credit Card Act, Healthcare Reform, Dodd-Frank, with the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, lots of less heralded initiatives like a big new push for exports that’s paying off. We’re just now regaining financial equilibrium. The DOW recovered. Up from 6000 to 12000. We’re adding jobs instead of losing them. The GDP is positive instead of negative. If this was baseball instead of politics, the numbers would speak over all else.
On foreign policy, the campaign promises – to disengage from Iraq, go after Al-Qaeda in Pakistan were met. Obama adroitly managed a number of tricky foreign challenges from pirates, bin Laden, to Libya. Each time passing the test of leadership.
Not sure what people were expecting. Obama is perfect for the times. Smart, cool, collected. A calm poised presence in a great national storm. That alone, is worth re-election. We can never tell exactly what a president will decide. That’s why character does count. A good solid character. A good family man. Father and husband.
No President in modern history has encountered the kind of mindless opposition heaped upon Obama. White politicians demanding our first black president produce his birth certificate. The leader of the Senate vowing defeat of Obama was goal one. A joint session marred by a Republican yelling liar. The Rupert Murdoch hack news propaganda campaign. Obama hates white people, but likes communists. That’s been Murdoch’s Glenn Beck message for most of this first term. Murdock using all of his resources in America to defame and defeat Obama.
Obama is a good Christian man. It’s up to us voters to shield him from the barbarians at the gate.
I agree 100% with think123. I was going to post this in response to Jason’s Matt Damon quote, but it is operative here too:
George Clooney is better than Matt Damon.
I like think123 and Clooney and Damon. For all of the President’s success, he failed to address the “mindless opposition heaped upon” him.
That’s the biggest sin. It hurt him, but it also hurt Democrats across the board while empowering Republicans.
Clooney is just saying that because Obama gave him millions of dollars in tax cuts. (follow the link, it’s fun).
Puckminster Fuller goes for the rim shot.
Crap, nothing rhymes with Jason.
What I’ve noticed is that the less Obama opens his mouth, the better his approval numbers are.