Obama Hits New Low on the Give A Damn Index

By C. Edmund Wright

After a couple of days of bad news for President Obama in the Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll, this morning's report is the second straight day of deteriorating numbers for the administration.

Without making too much of a four day trend -- two days of improvement followed by two days of sinking -- here are excerpts from the report:

The Rasmussen Reports daily President Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove -- giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13.

Overall, 48% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-one percent (51%) disapprove.

That moves our morphing "Give a Damn" Index A to 69%: the combined number of likely voters who have strong opinions either way.

Of those who disapprove of Obama, 80% do so strongly while only 58% of his supporters feel strongly about that position, moving Obama to a -22 in our "Give A Damn Index B."

This Index puts some perspective on the intensity of public opinion instead of simply counting all raw responses as equal. Rasmussen's excellent methodology, sampling and weighting is a fantastic template for such a reading.

The two indices show that short of something that dramatically changes the political landscape, Obama's numbers are more likely to go down than up and that only a small number of registered voters have yet to form strong opinions.

As one would expect, some parts of the Obama Care reforms and opinions of organized labor are not doing well either in these polls:

On health care reform, 83% say that proof of citizenship should be required before anyone can receive government subsidies.

Just 13% of Americans consider Labor Day one of the nation's most important holidays. Most view it primarily as the unofficial end of summer.

While the Obama Administration cannot be pleased with the labor figures, an end to this summer might be welcome enough news.