|
|
|
|
Public Opinion, Obama, and
the Ongoing Resistance to ObamaCare Part One of Three By Dave Andrusko Editor's note. This originally was to run yesterday, but there was so much else to discuss I held it over until today. The only change is that the numbers today in the Rasmussen's Presidential Tracking Poll show a minus 20% for President Obama, rather than a minus 22%--still awful. Please send your comments on any of the three parts of Today's News & Views and/or the three parts of National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are now following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.
Not to get sidetracked into subjects outside our purview, I mention First Lady Michelle Obama's lavishly expensive trip to Spain only to suggest that being amazingly tone-deaf, politically, seems to run in the family. That stunning lack of empathy/inability to grasp how his actions come across to the bulk of Americans/or indifference to the electorate is a key explanation why pro-abortion President Barack Obama's approval ratings continue to sink faster than the sun in late afternoon. Gallup has his approval rating slip-sliding along at 46%, which is bad enough. But even worse is Rasmussen Report's widely watched "Presidential Tracking Poll." That figure represents the percentage of people who strongly approve of the way Obama is performing minus the percentage who strongly disapprove. This morning [Wednesday] the figure is a minus 22! That is, 24% strongly approve but 46% strongly disapprove--matching Obama's lowest approval index rating yet. What if you take out the extremes? According to Rasmussen, "Overall, 43% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Fifty-six percent (56%) disapprove." Apologists for Obama argue either that he is in a slump of sorts; the victim of circumstance (Republicans unwilling to genuflect); or not getting credit from an ungrateful nation for all that he has accomplished. But writing in the Wall Street Journal, Peter Brown offers a better answer (one actually tethered to reality), one that also explains why Democrats are in real trouble as the mid-term elections approach: stubborn public resistance to ObamaCare. Brown points out in "Health Care Continues to Wound Democrats" when Obama/Reid/Pelosi rammed ObamaCare through against public opinion, White House senior aide David Axelrod boasted that Democrats would "be able to campaign proudly" on the legislation. Well, that was then and "These days, Democrats are doing it with some trepidation and, depending on their districts, at some risk." Why? As Brown shows in the results of a series of polls, it's because the public has not changed its mind. It's still thumbs-down to ObamaCare. "Quinnipiac University's
national poll found at the end of May that 51% of registered
voters disapproved of the health care overhaul and 40% approved,
statistically unchanged from 53%-39% disapproval in April,"
Brown writes. "Pew Research found that in July, adults
disapproved of the new law 47%-35%, worse than the 44%-40%
disapproval in its April survey. A CBS News July poll found that
36% approved of the law, while 49% opposed it." We will keep you up to date on all the relevant statistics as the mid-term elections approach, both here and at "National Right to Life News Today" (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org.) Please send me your thoughts at daveandrusko@gmail.com. |
