President Obama continues to suffer a slide job approval. Mickey Kaus explains what it's not.
When did everyone decide that it's high gas prices that are hurting Obama? Seems crazy to me. He's losing two out of three wars, the economy is flagging, and his signature domestic achievement is unpopular. So it must be the gas! … P.S.: It's not surprising that in polls people who say they "are feeling serious hardship as a result of gas prices" disproportionately say they "will not vote for Obama in 2012." Or, rather, it's not surprising that people who are so economically pressured that they are feeling serious hardship as a result of gas prices say they will not vote for Obama. That doesn't mean the problem is gas prices. The problem might be the economic pressure.
I'd say that the President's slide in the polls is over determined. A new ABC-Washington Post poll shows:
A record 49 percent of Americans now disapprove of President Obama's handling of the situation in Afghanistan, up 8 points since January. And those who disapprove "strongly" outnumber strong approvers by nearly a 2-1 margin.
I doubt that any particular bit of news out of Afghanistan triggered this particular poll result. Rather, this is the kind of thing that happens when a President's center begins to fall in. People lose faith in anything he does. Once that happens, you can point to anything and say that that's the cause. The Press will look for something that isn't the President's fault.
Whatever you think the basic problem is, it is bad for the President and for the nation. It doesn't mean that Obama will lose in 2012. It means that if he wins, it will be largely by default. That sets the stage for four more years of a weak and unpopular Presidency.
Just as bad, a Republican might win by default. Obama is only one point ahead of Mike Huckabee in North Carolina, in a PPP poll, and Huckabee hasn't so much as twitched in the direction of a run.
The reason Birtherism and Transcriptism is good for Obama:
1.) Birtherism was working good for the good guys all the way up unitl he released it today. By design, it was always a political weapon, and worked well for Obama in the beginning, but as the issue still lingered in combination with an absolute failure of Democratic Policies, he always knew that Trump Card could be played in his favor. By showing it now, the plan has met it's design requirements and a large portion of his opposition can be written off in the public eye via the media.....I always felt that there was three types of Birthers.
Type #1: True guiliable people who really beleived it, and would beleive it inspite of any evidence proving otherwise.
Type #2: People who knew better, but were attempting to use it as a Political Weapon just as the President was using it, hoping that it would not see the light of day before the election
Type #3: People who really wanted to believe it, but knew better, and didn't let anybody know about it, and would not confront people who believed.
In the end, this is gonna get chalked up as a win for Obama, just in the sense that it allows the media to really step up the attack just in time for the Propoganda Campaign to start, but not the big win he was hoping to get before the election of 2012, the time period in which the release of the document was to see the light of day. As Saul Alisky had taught him, a favorite and popular political tactic is to present the "answer", and then force your political opponent to ask the "question", and then use the asking of the question as a club to beat him with.
Well Played!
2.) Transcriptism is the next club for which Obama and the media will beat down their opposition with. We will have to see if these same people who drove the Birtherism Bus, are gonna fall for the exact same tactic over the Transcripts. I suspect this one, no matter how viscous it gets, will be held tight to breast till shortly before the election. The big mistake either side is gonna make here is in the definition of the reasoning of why they want to see them, or in Obama's case, the reasoning why he won't release them. Which ever side does not make the big mistake in explaining the reasoning will win this battle, and since Obama is up 1-0, Election 2012 is still in his grasp.
Posted by: Jimi | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 04:47 PM
"Transcriptism is the next club for which Obama and the media will beat down their opposition with."
Kinda like saying "Paranoid schizophrenia will be the next club for which Psychiatrist and medical journals will beat down their opposition with."
Oh, did I say "paranoid schizophrenia"? Well, if the shoe fits...
Posted by: Dave | Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 06:12 PM