By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. My family is on vacation. While we are gone I'll be running some new stories plus  past articles that you've indicated you liked. This first ran July 8. Dave

Flipping channels last night I ran across an interview on Fox News with Prof. Larry Sabato, one of those go-to guys the media interviews. Last night's topic went begging for a deeper explanation.

Sabato, who directs the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, was asked about President Obama's precipitous fall among Independent voters, as measured by the latest Gallup Poll. In a nutshell he simply said, hey, it's a long time until November 2012 and things could change (presumably for the better) for Obama. Well, yes and no and that misses the more immediate point.

Obama will be on the ballot THIS November, if once removed. Try as he might, all the messes that we find ourselves in will be laid at Obama's feet--and at the feet of those who supported him in, for example, that monstrosity known as ObamaCare. (See Part Two.) Sabato also mentioned that members of a president's typically take a bath in his first off-year election-- small consolation for those Democrats whose political necks are on the line in less than four months.

So what do the Gallup numbers show? According to Gallup's Jeffrey F. Jones, "Thirty-eight percent of independents approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, the first time independent approval of Obama has dropped below 40% in a Gallup Daily tracking weekly aggregate." That 38% compares with 56% a year ago--a drop of a whopping 18%.

Obama has also experienced a small decline among Democrats (from 90% to 81%) and (proportionally) a larger drop among his small Republican base of support (from 20% in July 2009 to 12% this past week).

As National Review's Jim Geraghty points out this morning, Democrats, saddled with baggage galore, will attempt to blame former President George W. Bush/Republicans in general. But Geraghty turns to an unlikely source who disputes the idea that a shift-the-blame-game can work: Jerome Armstrong, whom Geraghy describes as a "Democratic consultant, onetime co-author with Markos Moulitsas " (founder and publisher of the very left-leaning "Daily Kos").

Armstrong writes, "It'd be historically unprecedented for Obama to have the sort of reversal that Reagan achieved, or even Clinton, from now until the end of his Presidency. That's because Obama is also the most polarizing President ever. Obama achieved that feat a mere year into his Presidency." One year in Obama had "a net negative reaching 65% between Republicans and Democrats," Armstrong writes. "The net negative stands at 69% now, 18 months into the Obama Presidency. For perspective, the highs of the others mentioned above: Clinton- 52%; Reagan- 45%; Carter- 27%. The partisan nature of Obama's divide means he's very unlikely to dramatically change the poll numbers; like Democrats did against Bush, once Republicans have turned against Obama in this environment, there's no reason to look back."

According to Gallup, Republicans maintain a narrow lead on the generic congressional ballot question (46% to 44%), but a huge 3-2 lead in enthusiasm (38% to 25%). On top of that Democrats running in November will be running, willingly or not, with Obama, whose popularity continues to decline.

No wonder Obama is trying to avoid having the nomination of Dr. Donald Berwick, his nominee to head the giant Medicare/Medicaid bureaucracy, examined by the Senate Commerce Committee (see Part Two). The pro-abortion, pro-rationing ObamaCare is a disaster in the making, a reality which Obama wants desperately to keep under wraps until at least after the November elections.