Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Few would argue that Barack Obama has been a particularly good president, and yet one of the oddest things about his polling is that people continue to view him favorably even as they report they think he's summoning our fiscal Ragnarok.
That likeability makes campaigning against him difficult. I recently interviewed some people who are working on a campaign issue against him and they said that their focus groups and polls showed that people were much more favorable to the conservative side if they didn't in any way personalize the issue or mention Obama's name.
So I found Peggy Noonan's column in the Wall Street Journal interesting. She says that those who aren't part of Obama's base are becoming more inclined to dislike him:
What is happening is that the president is coming across more and more as a trimmer, as an operator who's not operating in good faith. This is hardening positions and leading to increased political bitterness. And it's his fault, too. As an increase in polarization is a bad thing, it's a big fault.
She cites the incivility of the war he launched against the Catholic Church with his HHS mandate. When the targeted religious groups didn't take the mandate sitting down, he ratched things up by claiming these groups were declaring a war on women.
There was the "bush-league" plea for space from Russian pressure, the odd moment where Obama made the Trayvon Martin tragedy all about himself, and:
Now this week the Supreme Court arguments on ObamaCare, which have made that law look so hollow, so careless, that it amounts to a characterological indictment of the administration. The constitutional law professor from the University of Chicago didn't notice the centerpiece of his agenda was not constitutional? How did that happen?
Noonan, while acknowledging that the Court could rule in different ways, says that it all just looks bad. We were in crisis when President Obama was inaugurated and he wasted precious time on legislation that could very well be unconstitutional.
So the relationship with people who don't faint at the sight of him has not improved, she says. As for the rest, she wonders whether the president has really forged any bonds with the American people. While they were focused on whether America would survive, he was focused on forcing through Congress a health care bill that all of his out-of-touch friends loved:
And so the relationship the president wanted never really knitted together. Health care was like the birth-control mandate: It came from his hermetically sealed inner circle, which operates with what seems an almost entirely abstract sense of America. They know Chicago, the machine, the ethnic realities. They know Democratic Party politics. They know the books they've read, largely written by people like them—bright, credentialed, intellectually cloistered. But there always seems a lack of lived experience among them, which is why they were so surprised by the town hall uprisings of August 2009 and the 2010 midterm elections.
At best, Obama has no meaningful relationship with portions of the electorate. At worst, that relationship is seriously souring.
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Jul '10
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
People continue to like Obama because Romney is still brushing off the last of his challengers. As he and the Super Pacs turn to a critique of Obama's failed administration, this inch-deep liking will disappear and the thin-skinned, narcissistic president will turn petulant. It has been observed that the more Obama appears in public, the lower his numbers go. All his pals in the media can't help him there. You can't hide in the Rose Garden in a presidential election.
Jul '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
There's no room for complacency here. The pressure on Obama needs to be relentless in terms of deconstructing the man and informing everyone possible who he is behind the rhetoric. Regarding the energy used on healthcare, I seem to remember being told Rahm split away from Obama on this issue in private as Rahm felt it would be a worse gamble than energy ( or maybe because his buddies were counting on the carbon swap scam ). Obama reached beyond the law and is now flabberghasted that the scotus did not rally behind his cult of personality, he is actually speechless. Silly Barrack, commerce clause Trix are for kids.
May '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Sigh. Peggy Noonan, really? She is just now noticing the character flaws surrounding Obama? Where was this clear-eyed analysis in 2008?Once again, I'm amazed there is a Ricochet link to anything Peggy writes.
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
I resisted the urge to remind everyone of a few of her remarks in 2008 ...
Nov '10
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Mollie and Conservative Fred, if you really want to be amused by this, read over the Comments Section to the piece. Peggy gets absolutely skewered on this very same issue.
May '10
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
My 87 year old mother (who voted twice for Clinton) puts it very succinctly: "He's not an American."
She's not saying she's a "birther", she's saying that he truly is clueless about the nature of this country.
I think she's right. As I have said many times on this forum, my Hawaiian wife says that this is an all-too-common offshoot of being 3000 miles away from the rest of this country.
Add 2o years of "G-d D--n America", and you have a clueless anti-American president.
Edited on March 30, 2012 at 8:49pmNov '10
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
I'm a little surprised about the focus groups who found the conservative side of the issue to be more appealing if they didn't even mention Obama's name. The only explanation I can think of for this is that most Americans are good hearted people, and they want the first black president to be a success on some level. They are still willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. However, I suspect that when the actual election starts, these same people will then really focus on the reality of Obama and his record. (side note: most Americans are not paying attention at this point. Shocking as it may seem, there are two America's. Political junkie America, made up of Ricochet readers and columnists, and the much larger real America whose focus is elsewhere) That's when his poll numbers will really crater. The reality and the hopeful dreams of the past are just too far apart.
May '10
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
I have never believed this business about while his policies are not popular, he is still liked by the American people. Bunk. I think it's a manufactured trope by the msm elites to salvage their credibility for pushing this guy and it smells of rat. Truth is, Barak Obama is not, and has not ever been, particularly likable. He oozes with egomaniacal self-regard and condescending contempt for just about everybody (who doesn't "look like" him) in all of the 57 states. He's thin-skinned and mean-spirited and it's getting harder and harder for him and his people to keep this unpleasant character of the man concealed. Combine that with the complete lack of success of his administration to help the country; what's left to like?
Edited on March 30, 2012 at 6:01pmJan '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
I agree. However it is good to hear the voice of Mickey Kaus or Peggy Noonan so we do not form our own bubble.
Peggy Noonan is getting funny.
May '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
As the interim, resident Peggy Noonan scold, I did not mean to come off as insular and rude. The sad part is that Peggy can be a very talented writer, but with each of these semi-anti-Obama columns she comes across as an intellectual lightweight.
Apr '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Oh c'mon.
Peggy Noonan is a buffoon.
May '10
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Survey says....
Click to enlarge.
Apr '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
As Lord Varys tell us (accurately, I think) in the new Game of Thrones promo on HBO, power is in part an illusion, a projection.
The President won't be able to shake off the failure of Obama Care if the Supremes dump all or part of it. We will have a complete narrative for describing Obama Care. It was designed by mandarins in the hot house of lefty academia. It was passed into law by incompetent, pandering, dishonest politicians. It was "sold" by a president more interested in forcing his world view onto a people then in actually resolving a problem. It was rightfully overturned by the Supremes because of its lack of respect for our founding principles.
That kind of failure leaves a bruise - a big purple, yellow blotchy bruise. It will effective the public’s perception of him has a leader regardless of the James Carville like spin.
We already see the slack-jaws like Chris Matthews wondering how all this could come to pass. How long before they disengage and begin to blame Obama for the failure of progressivism?
Dec '10
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Few would argue that Barack Obama has been a particularly good president, and yet one of the oddest things about his polling is that people continue to view him favorably even as they report they think he's summoning our fiscal Ragnarok.
I suspect there is a racial aspect behind some of this. Simply criticizing Obama's policies and record is enough to get branded a racist. Expressing any hint of dislike for the man himself virtually ensures it.
Jun '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Ragnarok?
Isn't that the name of Jeremiah Wright's "church?"
Dec '10
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
EJ, the more accurate cartoon is the other side of the conversation, where the pollster hears, "I don't care for his personality and petulance, and I find his wife overbearing and hectoring about diet and fitness," and HIS head explodes with thoughts of how the respondent must be lounging at home in Klan robes.
No one wants to admit they dislike America's first Black President for fear of being tarred as racist - because obviously there's no other basis for finding Obama boorish and unpleasant, right?
Jun '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
PS, the problem is that Obama is "cool," and people always like the cool kids, even when they are not particularly likable. What Romney will need to do is expose the cool kid for what he really is -- a hidebound academic Leftist who is in way, way over his head.
Cool kids who are demonstrably over their heads and flailing in the deep end don't look so cool.
May '10
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Colin B Lane: Ragnarok?
Isn't that the name of Jeremiah Wright's "church?" · 15 minutes ago
I think my guild defeated him in the Molten Core a few years ago...I was a druid. ;)
Mar '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Mr Obama is likable in the same way that a used-car salesman is likable - the white shirt with sleeves half-rolled-up is a giveaway. As are the sharply-creased pants.
Sure, he's cool in a vacuous sorta way. Or cold, might be a better way of putting it.
I'm still not sure whether enough people have figured this out, yet - Rob may still be right.
Aug '11
Re: Obama's Relationship With Americans Is Worsening
Absolutely. It's sort of like how the media proclaimed him the world's most awesome orator, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together had to have noticed what an absolutely terrible speaker he is. Oh, maybe he's good at reading from prepared remarks, but even then he comes off as cold.
No, I don't believe he's "likeable" at all. And I don't believe anyone really thinks that.