PrintMay 2, 2009
Obama +1 net approval on day 103
Rasmussen's Daily Tracking Poll paints a different picture than all the headlines last week about how popular Obama is. With today's poll showing only 33% of those polled saying they strongly approved of his job performance while 32% say they strongly disapprove, the result is a new low of only net +1 . The strongly disapprove number has remained fairly stable for two months now while the strongly approve numbers have been on a slow downward drift.
There are still a great many people out there who think Obama is doing ok. Part of this is because many those those who voted for him did not buy into the media hype so their expectations were of the modest sort to begin with. Part of it is because, as someone put it to me just this Wednesday "Obama seems to be learning from his mistakes and that's what counts."
One must be careful too not to assume the waning approval number is the result of disenchantment solely among those from the political right and the middle. Some of what my friend saw as learning from mistakes involved Obama walking back on promises to the political left. When he was running for the presidency, Obama told abortion supporters passing the so called Freedom of Choice Act would be a high priority. Today it's not.
Yesterday's NY Times story that the administration may revive the use of military tribunals has some who supported him during the campaign questioning Obama's commitment to their notion of civil liberties and human rights.
With a recent Pew poll showing support for abortion dropping, and a Rasmussen poll showing a steep drop in the number of likely voters who think America is winning the war on terror, Obama is likely to find it hard to keep both the activists in own party and mainstream America happy. A lot of Democrats did not like it when Bill Clinton moved towards the middle, but they still rallied around him when the Republicans attacked.
