Obama=Bush

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

It's fascinating how unpopular our Presidents become about 2 years into their first terms when everyone of the opposing party is out to beat them in the next election.

[Neil Heath]

I suspect our society's penchant for instant gratification means they expect the new guy to fix everything wrong in just a year or so. As a letter to the editor in our paper today said, the constant changing of the guard will not change the problems we face, and the new people will be as reluctant to tackle them as their predecessors were. So the more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Sandy]

Those who "strongly approved" of Bush's presidency during the last couple of years were fewer than 15%, or about half of what Obama now has. But the citation above is also Rasmussen, which is not objective or accurate when it comes to measuring Democrats, and skews Republicans upward.

The economy was the top issue in the mid-term elections, a fact that was demonstrated by exit polling across the country. The GOP is leaning toward making the monumental, and probably very costly mistake of thinking it was opposition to health care, expansion of government intrusion, and the mechanics of the solutions to economic recovery that the Obama administration proposed. Obviously, there were conservative elements who pushed those issues to the top of the table, tea partiers mostly, and the media made a lot of the handful of those who did get elected, mostly by defeating mainstream Republicans in the primaries in districts that would have gone GOP anyway. What happened, if you look at the numbers, was that a disappointed Democratic constituency did not turn out in the numbers that they did in 2006 or 2008. The Republicans pulled down about 53% of the votes cast this month, but in the 60 or so races that made the difference in control of the house, their average margin of victory was less than 1%. If the Democrats had just managed a 1% greater turnout, which would still have been below their 2006 total, they would still control the house.

There are two factors in play right now which lead me to believe Obama will win a second term without too much difficulty. One will be the choice of the GOP regarding who their candidate will be. Among the current list of GOP hopefuls, there are none who do well enough against the President at this point to be considered competetive. Palin and Gingrich are, for all practical purposes, unelectable. The other will be how much economic improvement occurs between now and 2012, and how much of the credit for it will go to the President. The backlash from GOP efforts to continue gridlock politics as usual, such as the announced effort by McConnell to deny him a second term, may also have some effect. Those were the same mistakes they made when Bill Clinton was in office, and it cost them.

The GOP establishment hasn't even taken their house seats and they are already resisting the tea party effort to eliminate earmarks. The voters are tired, and they're in the mood for real change. So I think the GOP control of the house might be short lived.

[Neil Heath]

I think Sandy makes some good arguments, and I hope he's on target. One pundit I know says the real reason for the bit GOP push to get elected this year was because next year the voting districts will be redrawn, as they are after each census, and having GOP control will allow them to further gerrymander the lines to keep themselves in power.

[KeithE]

Lately the American public does expect instant solutions. That argues for any presidential approval rating being low (wartime being an exception).

But the point that Ralph Nader (and I) was making is that Obama's major policies (Wars, Gitmo, offshoring, NSA eavesdropping w/o FISA, bailing out banks, immigration, etc.) are mostly indistinguishable from GWB's. Health care is about the only difference that does not really change much until 2014 (if it last that long). Now wrt rhetoric there is much difference, but actual action/policies there is hardly any difference yet betwen Obama and GWB. That is another reason their approval ratings are about the same (once the 9/11 boost was depleted).

Did any of you read the Nader article . I really cannot figure out what teh RW has against Barck in terms of actions / policies.