Capital Journal
Columns and Observations from the Capital
The Shifting Political Map
November 17, 2010, 7:00 AM ET.Why Voters Think Obama’s Meeting With GOP Leaders Is a Gimmick.Article Comments (1) Capital
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Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.
Inside the Beltway, the conventional wisdom is that the White House meeting between President Barack Obama and the new Republican congressional leadership –rescheduled for Nov. 30 — is a big deal, an opportunity to reset the country on a better course.
But the American people apparently see it mostly as a publicity stunt.
They don’t think there is much chance anything will get done.
Chalk it up to cynicism or to a belief that the president and GOP leaders are just too far apart in their thinking to reach common ground on anything meaningful. Whatever the reason, Americans think Mr. Obama needs to give ground to the GOP on policy matters, but they are skeptical that he will do so.
That’s the word from a new Quinnipiac University national poll that finds the president’s job-approval rating statistically unchanged but at its all-time low.
More ominous for the president is that voters no longer assume that he, not his political opposition, has the right answers to the problems facing America.
GOP Seen as Better on the Economy
For the first time, by 45%-42%, they think congressional Republicans are better suited to deal with the economy than is he, and they are split evenly on who is better able to handle health care.
Only one in five registered voters think “there is a good chance” the president and the Republican leadership can come to agreement on major issues. Three in four say the two sides are “too far apart and meaningful compromise on major matters is unlikely.” Only a quarter of Democrats are optimistic that some kind of agreement can be reached compared with one in six Republicans.
This finding is problematic for the president because of the public attitude that comes with it. Voters want a mid-course correction from the president, but don’t think they will get one.
The poll found that 72% of voters think the president should compromise his beliefs in order to get things done with the Republicans, but only 63% think the congressional Republicans should compromise theirs in order to get an agreement with him.
Part of the president’s public opinion problem is the aftershock from the election in which his team took it on the chin. Just as Americans flock to a winner, they shy away from a loser. And while his name may not have been on the ballot this month, Mr. Obama was the big loser in the November elections.
Obama’s Job Approval Stays Low
Mr. Obama’s job approval certainly shows this to be the case. Until now, the lowest job score the president had received in a national Quinnipiac poll was 48% disapprove, 44% approval in July. This time, the survey found roughly the same reading, 49% of registered voters disapprove of his job performance, while 44% approve.
He’s not anywhere near the levels that George W. Bush reached at his nadir, when he went into the high 20s in approval, and there are two years until the 2012 election, an eternity in American politics.
Nonetheless, the profile of those who disapprove of his performance is remarkably similar to the coalition that, if it were to stay intact and support whoever the Republicans run against him in 2012, would prompt a huge flashing red light for his re-election strategists.
If one were to consider the president’s approval numbers as a referendum on his fitness for a second term, it is a fair analysis that he has lost broad blocks of the American middle class. Perhaps most important, the coalition still behind him is eerily reminiscent of those who have backed a bevy of losing Democratic presidential candidates over the years.
Political independents disapprove 55%-37%; whites disapprove 57%-37%; men disapprove 55%-40%(women approve 49%-44%); those who earn $50,000-$100,000 disapprove 51%-43%.
Middle Class Loses Faith
This loss of faith among the middle class is accompanied by a clear change in their confidence in his ideas, vis-à-vis the Republicans’ ideas. And they worry he is too stubborn to change course.
By 59%-36%, voters say the president should change course because of the election results. Independents, whose strong support was one of the keys to Mr. Obama’s 2008 victory, think so 63%-32%. Yet, by 49%-41%, all Americans don’t think he will.
That’s because they have changed their minds about his policies. His call for change that dominated the 2008 election gave him a comfortable victory that even resonated among the subgroups of the electorate, previously cited who historically been skeptical of Democratic promises.
Now, the country thinks by 48%-44% that in the long term, the president’s policies will hurt, rather than help, the country.
That’s why they see the White House meeting with Congress’s GOP leaders as more Washington, D.C., political theater.Write to Peter Brown at peter.brown@quinnipiac.edu.
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Obama is so full of shit. Fuck him. He is not going to change a damn thing, he wants to sit and lecture others.
