Nov 12 2008
Taking The Pulse Of America On Obama & The Dems
There is a barometer for Americans to assess how well the Dems and Obama are doing – the right track/wrong track poll numbers. Since the election USA Today/Gallup checked the pulse of America and the election of Obama has not moved the needle: it is still pegged at 13% right track and 84% wrong track. People want to see results, they are not buying into promises and fantasies. So we should keep an eye on this chart for the next 6 months to see how Obama and the Dems are doing:
The problem for the Dems and Obama are ridiculously high expectations. Obama promised Nirvana and now he and the Dems have to deliver. Check out this other poll data to appreciate the dangers ahead for the left:
Americans have soaring hopes for the incoming Obama administration and an even higher opinion of the Democrat they just elected president, a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.
…
Almost that many — 65% — said they think the country will be better off four years from now.
…
A lower level of optimism greeted President Bush and former president Bill Clinton when they were first elected. In both cases, slightly more than 50% said they thought the country would be better off in four years.
…
Nearly two-thirds in the poll, 64%, said Obama’s top priority as president should be improving the economy. Majorities said it is critical or very important that he sign new, stricter regulations on financial firms and help people facing foreclosure. Nearly half said the same about passing a tax cut for the middle class.
Expectations for Obama are high across the board. Eight in 10 said he will improve conditions for minorities and the poor, and 76% said he’ll increase respect for the United States abroad.
About seven in 10 said he’ll be able to improve education and the environment. More than 60% said he will reduce unemployment, bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, improve the health care system, create a strong economic recovery and keep the U.S. safe from terrorism.
The American voters expect Obama to get out his magic wand and start fixing things. And don’t kid yourselves, they will not be waiting four years. He will end poverty, cure disease, raise everyone’s income and provide the best damn jobs on the planet! LOL! What we may have here this year is the once in a generational lesson on the limits of power and government. Every 30 or so years enough naive voters decide to come out and vote for the next Pied Piper of Plentiful Promises!
And then we get back to reality and remember why believing pols is a fool’s errand. My guess (and you know how bad my predictions can be) is the wrong track number stays damn high for a long time, as does the negative impression of Congress. The Iraq War, waged over 5 years, will look easy in comparison to righting the economy and bringing on Nirvana. But hey, that is what the Dems promised and that is what they are now required to deliver.
part of the problem of the lasst 4-8 years has been the relentlessly negative narrative the dems (abetted by the MSM) have spread. Thus naturally the public should expect positive changes for the future.
the challenge then is how to undermine the Dem efforts and highlight their failures without becoming like what the Dems have been in the past 8 years.
Huan,
All we have to do is ask “where are all those things you promised?” and the message will work.
The message won’t work if it never gets heard. Publishing such a question here is one thing. Having the question heard on the network “top of the hour” news is something quite different. Example are the Palin smears repeated over and over in newscasts all day long. When they are discovered to be false, silence. They just stop broadcasting the smears but never inform people that they weren’t true. I work with people who to this day believe they were true.
If the media simply refuse to publish those messages, then they have very little impact. Notice how Republican voter turnout was actually down this year. If just 65% of Republicans had gone to the polls and cast ballots, Obama could have been defeated. Obama was not elected by misinformed Democrats, he was elected by apathetic Republicans or the “cut of my nose to spite my face” Republicans who decided not to vote in order to “teach America a lesson” or something. I have zero respect for the latter bunch, by the way. That kind of behavior is indicative of some broader personality issues beyond the scope of a political blog.
I expect Obama’s “approval” numbers will drop before he even takes the oath of office before he has done anything at all. There are actually people out there who literally expect the Obama administration to pay their household expenses. They are expecting quite literally to get a check in the mail to pay their rent and utility bills. Obama is going to “take care of them”. He is everyone’s “sugar daddy”.
It is going to be an interesting time when people realize that check isn’t coming.
Or, alternately, you could wait until Obama actually becomes President before judging his performance as President.
I know, I know – kooky idea, this whole “using facts instead of assumptions and projections” thing.
GuyFawkes …. never stopped people from complaining about what Bush might, could, should, etc. You would think the government was waterboarding several people a day to hear the media rant about it. I think three people were over his entire presidency and they were pretty bad eggs at that.
But yeah, I imagine a lot of people are going to get a belly full before he even takes office because he and his aides tend to run their mouths a lot. They should manage to get just about everyone upset. What was it today … backpedaling from the tax cuts …
Guy:
That is funny. Bush gets blamed for the weather.
Hopefully the economy will improve in the next four years no matter what Obama does or does not do.
I think he does have some really high expectations to live up to. But you know it is not that easy. If a president could really solve all those problems, Bush and Clinton and all those other presidents would have done that themselves.
Wrong track numbers down? Of course – we’re nosediving into the second great depression and everyone knows it, although most people are still scared to say it openly.
If you hadn’t noticed, the $700 billion bailout is now officially a failure. Half the money is already gone with no discernible effect on the crisis – the other half will be gone by the end of the year, and it will just be gone – it will have no impact at all. The hole we are in just keeps getting deeper.
The one hopeful thing I can see about Obama is that his presence might be enough to stop the major riots once unemployment hits 20% next year.
On the other hand, if even he can’t stop that, I suggest looking for a nice carribean country to hide out in. This won’t be a place worth living for quite some time.
crosspatch:
So, you’re okay with the U.S. government torturing people, so long as it’s only done to “bad eggs”? That’s an interesting viewpoint. Two questions: how does one decide which eggs are bad enough to deserve torture? And who does the deciding?
Also – aren’t there other techniques engaged in down at Guantanamo Bay, such as sleep deprivation, forced standing, etc. that could also be classified as “torture”? I believe they were defined as torture when they applied to our soldiers held as POWs in Vietnam, such as John McCain.
I don’t think we have to wait to find out what Obama and his people think of us. They just issued a statement saying that all those inquiries about the validity of his US birth were “just garbage. ” I dont’ know about the rest of you but I take that to mean that he doesn’t care what we think because we are just garbage and our questions and opinions don’t matter now that he isn’t seeking our votes. I put this “garbnage” statement right up there with “Let them eat cake.”
momdear1:
No, sorry. The idea that a couple of random people working with no media access whatsoever could have uncovered an issue that the entire RNC, with their massive resources, could not have found…
Well, yes – that idea is garbage.
Barack Obama is the President of the U.S. Your side lost, in a democratic election. The people have spoken.
The sooner you come to terms with that, the better.
Sorry Guy, but his grandma says he was born in Kenya and that Certificate of live birth he tried to palm off as a birth certificate could have been filled out and sent in after his mother returned to Hawaii. If he has a bonafide Birth Certificate why doesn’t he pony it up? The only reason not to is because it doesn’t exist.
His new forged draft registration document proves he isn’t beyond forging documents to pull the wool over our eyes, expecially when he has the MSM covering for him.