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Polls indicate Obama will be a one-term president
Can President Obama’s make-or-break speech on job creation turn the tide in time?
THE CHANCES of President Obama getting elected for a second term look miserable. A new set of opinion polls suggest he is destined to be a one-term president, like Jimmy Carter and Dubya's father, George HW Bush, before him.
Three polls – commissioned by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and Politico – together paint a picture of a president facing a hill too high to climb. Among the findings are:
• Two-thirds of Democrats say the US is headed in the wrong direction;
• For the first time in his presidency, more people said they would vote for a "generic Republican candidate" than they would for Obama, by 44 to 40 per cent;
• By a margin of two to one, most Americans believe they are worse off now than at the start of Obama's presidency.
• Forty-three per cent of voters say they definitely will not vote for Obama in 2012.
Tomorrow, Obama will go before Congress to lay out his job creation plan – a programme designed to reduce the current 9.1 per cent unemployment figure. If it involves big spending, the Republicans are bound to resist it. If he can find other ways – through tax incentives, for example – he might just turn the tide.
The irony is, that many Americans will like what Obama has to say. When Politico's poll asked respondents about "a large scale federally subsidised nationwide construction programme putting Americans back to work building roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals" a 51 per cent majority favoured the idea, while only 21 per cent opposed it.
As Steve Benen, blogging for Washington Monthly, puts it: "For all the talk about the centre-right nation, and for all of the president's troubles in the polls, most of the public is still on board with what Democrats are proposing."
Greg Sargent, writing for the Washington Post, also points up this "striking disconnect" between Americans' confidence in Obama – low – and their approval of his actual polices – high.
While the WSJ poll showed only 37 per cent approve of his handling of the economy, and a meagre 31 per cent feeling confident that he has the right strategy to improve the economy, the figures tell a very different story when pollsters ask in detail about his policies.
As Sargent points out,
• A solid majority (60 per cent) supports reducing the deficit by ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich;
• A solid majority (56 per cent) supports reducing the deficit through a combination of tax increases and spending cuts;
• Only 37 per cent support the GOP's solution to the deficit, i.e., reducing it only through spending cuts with no tax hikes on the rich or corporations.
On top of all that comes the Politico finding that, whatever the state of the economy, 73 per cent of Americans still like Obama.
So, while the Times calls tomorrow's speech a make-or-break moment, many believe Obama's best hope of winning a second term is that his countrymen fail to find a Republican candidate they can bear to elect in his place.
On that front, however, the race is narrowing, with the lunatic fringe candidates now being pushed aside by two clear front-runners, the pistol-toting Texas governor Rick Perry and the Mormon millionaire Mitt Romney.
Perry is pulling ahead – the Politico poll puts him on a stunning 36 per cent, against Romney's 17 per cent backing – but his right-wing views are divisive. However, as Alexander Cockburn wrote for The First Post last month, Perry has luck on his side – which is more than can be said for Obama. ·
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Don't be too sure about the polls just about now. Polls have been known to be historically inaccurate at this point in the electoral process here in America. The current situation may be interpreted as the article states, yet the moment of truth will happen when the Republican nominee is named and the gloves come off. Then the fight for the presidency begins, historically even Abraham Lincoln should have been a one term president. Yet as history records, the war being fought here swung in favour of the Northern States and Abraham Lincoln was reelected by a slimmer margin than he would have liked but nonetheless was reelected.
(speaking as a Canadian) I would like to point out that under the American system, this Democratic President has struggled trying to introduce any policy not approved by the Republican Congress. So don't blame him if Bush's bellicose policies cannot be restrained or eliminated. As for health care - What is the matter with Americans? Do you think it right that a child born into poverty should suffer because the parents are too poor to afford critical care? You do not go to a doctor for certain symptoms because you can't afford the visit - and later find out that at that time you could have been saved but now it is worse and you are incurable! We, of course, are closet commies because we all pay into a healthcare system for all. Oh! The Great United States! And the Republican party seems to be populated by morons idiots and gun-loving wierdos - How glad I am to live in a civilized country - albeit with a Bush think-alike in power.
According to these polls, the next president is going to have to do just what Obama did. That is promise to get the USA out of wars and get the economy moving. Despite huge majorities and his energy and talent, Obama could not deliver and did the complete opposite. His successor is going to be an even weaker puppet at the behest of an ever more greedy and evil US government machinery. 1984 may get re-written as 2015.
All that you say about governments of all stripes telling lies is true. American politicians are so wrapped up in ideology that they are incapable of recognizing the truth or even knowing how to look for it. They are incapable of understanding an opponent's point of view. You speak of restoring America's greatness. Yes, that sounds good, but how do we define America's greatness? Is our greatness a return to some glorified past that we carry around in our imagination, or is it something entirely new and as yet unimagined? For one example, does American greatness mean dominance in the world as it did following World War II? That was a dominance accepted by the non-communist world and at least recognized by the Communists. This kind of dominance is no longer possible in the current globalized world. But is it possible for American ideologists to give up that sort of dream of American greatness? Clinging to that dream in the new world is probably, in itself, a sign of decline. President Obama has, to his vast credit, attempted through negotiation and compromise to bridge the American ideological gap. His good efforts were met with implacable ideological warfare and will to power from the other side. It is now apparent that he carried that effort too far and that it will be difficult for him to regain a position of trust and influence. President Obama has little to lose by laying out the truth, by taking on the mantle of the prophet and laying out a truthful and common sense vision of a good American future. Is it even possible, though, to get the political class to see the difference between truth and ideology? Is it possible for them to see that tolerance is not surrender of principle?We will see what the President has to say, and we will see what the reaction is. I'm expecting ideological gridlock. I hope to be surprised by common sense.I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA
Interesting to see the mixed bag of indicators on Obama's future. I cannot hope for change too quickly or too fervently, for one. But then I do not get a vote. However, Obamanoid policies do affect us all as when America sneezes, the world catches a cold...the worst case scenario is probably that a weak Republican gets in, Obama escapes without the disgrace of being the affirmative action POTUS with the hocus-pocus, and the US is bankrupted by fools who fail to repeal Obamacare and all the other inane policies the hocus-pocus POTUS has put in place. Then we get to see another 'Democrat' in the White House the next election after that (and no, that is not racist, it just refers to the paint job). The US dollar is doomed for sure though - Ron Paul is NOT going to get in.
Lied about closing Gitmo. Gave an amnesty to the Gitmo torturers. Lied about withdrawing from Iraq. Lied about withdrawing from Afghanistan. Started a new war with Libya. Ramping up for war with Iran. Opened new gulags at Basram. Positioned ICBMs in Poland aimed at Russia. Lied about rendering & torture programs. Obama is scum.