December 23, 2009
"F" Obama: Is Race The Only Thing Keeping This President From Being Rated The Worst Ever?
No, you won't see it on White House organ MSNBC, the dinosaur media, or CNN, but the British have noticed that despite the fact our arrogant neophyte gives himself a grade of "B+" for his first year in office, the American people gave him an F:
Barack Obama gave himself a B+ on Oprah Winfrey's White House Christmas Special on ABC, but the American public is far less generous. The latest influential Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll of likely US voters gives Obama a thumping 56 percent disapproval rating – an F grade by any measure. 46 percent strongly disapprove of the president’s job performance, while just 25 percent strongly approve. That’s a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 percentage points, a staggering figure for a president just 11 months into his term of office.These are historically low approval ratings for a US president, that concur with those released by several other pollsters, including NBC News/Wall Street Journal, who recently reported a 47 percent approval for Obama, and Quinnipiac and Marist, both at 46 percent.
The article then goes on to cite specific examples of just how bad fairs in comparison to other post-war Presidents (hint: not good), but what was really intriguing were the comments associated with the article.
The Telegraph is a UK paper and presumably most of the comments are therefore left by Brits and they are excoriating Obama's Presidency.
Among the more interesting claims was this one:
It is really far worse when you look at the breakdowns. Obama's STRONGLY disapproval is over 52% among the crucial swing independent voters and his strongly approve is only 47% among Democrats. When you consider that 98% of blacks still approve of his performance, and if they weren’t basically making their judgement on race alone, his actual approval amongst non-racially biased voters is close to a dismal 40%.
Are there any polling experts out there able to pass judgment on the accuracy of that claim?
I have to admit, I'm surprised that Black Americans would continue to support the man simply because he's black...or half-black, take your pick. I have many black friends and neighbors and, in speaking with them candidly about O Bomber, most of them readily admit he's made a ton of mistakes - especially in picking the powerful members of his administration. They seem to feel that he should be "given more time" to fix all that ails America. At the very same time, I've noticed the "Obama-Biden" bumper stickers coming off their vehicles at a record pace.
At the rate he's going, we may not have anywhere near enough time left! With deficit spending alone, it will take at least four generations to pay the tab - and that's only if he quit spending today. God knows he plans on spending trillions more. And that's in just ONE term.
Posted by: Dell at December 23, 2009 10:38 AMI had heard that support from blacks was down to 90%, but not sure where I saw it :(.
Posted by: Kevin at December 23, 2009 11:51 AMI think I saw that too. Gallup had him at around 90 in black voters in july and november. I'm not sure what the breakdown is now.
Posted by: MANstreammedia at December 23, 2009 12:00 PMHis mixed race heritage is the only reason he won, so it's no wonder some folks continue to support him because of it.
Posted by: arb at December 23, 2009 12:21 PMWilliam Jefferson - Randall "Duke" Cunningham
Crooked felons who deserve every minute of jail time they got. I could care less that one of them is white and the other black. They're BOTH crooks!
I judge our elected leaders the exact same way...including the President. What I have trouble understanding, I guess, is why others don't.
And, given the pure numbers, I don't think it was the "Black vote" that got him elected. Millions of Independent voters came to his rescue in the critical states where major electoral college votes are gleaned. They helped, certainly, but the Independent vote in key states was the difference.
Posted by: Dell at December 23, 2009 12:40 PMDell - really?
Remember a large majority of blacks wanted OJ simpson aquitted. It would be hard to exaggerate the amount of racism displayed by blacks.
Posted by: bandit at December 23, 2009 01:06 PMDell
From my perspective, race was virtually the only reason Obama was elected. While he was reasonably gifted when speaking from a prepared text, his ad hoc responses were very poor. His inconsistent policy pronouncements and incredibly self-aggrandizing persona (greek columns and claiming the seas will now recede??!!) should have sunk his presidential bid.
But the combination of white guilt and black bigotry provided the winning margin. While black bigotry & tribalism will probably not go away for many years, I suspect the white guilt is over with.
Posted by: iconoclast at December 23, 2009 01:22 PMIt is not merely the high level of approval from African-Americans that distorts Obama's ratings upwards. There are no doubt many non-blacks who in fact "disapprove" but are reluctant to say so either because they are "rooting for him" as the first black president, or because they find it socially unacceptable to disapprove. Note that in Rasmussen there are 10% of likely voters who disapprove but not strongly, while 20% approve but not strongly. You would expect a symmetrical distribution. This suggests that some of the non-strong approvers really disapprove (perhaps not strongly) but don't want to say so, even to a robocall.
Posted by: Mahon at December 23, 2009 05:07 PMTelegraph is an awesome newspaper and they often cover American events more throughly than our MSM does; however, FYI, Telegraph is the British equivalent of FOX news.
Not in a bad way but it is a Tory(conservative)- leaning paper frequently read & commented on by Americans. There are lots of Brits there as well, but many of those comments may be from U.S. readers.
Check out Gerald Warner's Telegraph blog for even more Obama-blistering commentary!
I hope Obama is planning his exit strategy, because he is NOT getting reelected. With approval ratings like this, he is already a lame duck.
Posted by: Pat at December 23, 2009 06:15 PMAs far as I'm concerned, giving himself a B+ is proof of the study that showed incompetent people overrated their competence.
Posted by: wheels at December 24, 2009 04:30 PMI don't know how much more tone-deaf Obama can be. My sense of it is that he has about three more months before he retreats into the White House under a deluge of hostile disapproval running up to the 2010 elections.
After that, his only role will be ceremonial and reduced to vetoing Republican legislation.
If I read it right, Obama will be America's first one-term black president, as if race has anything whatsoever to do with it.
Posted by: bobdog at December 24, 2009 05:49 PM
