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Over the past year President Obama has lost support across the board with all partisan sub groups, but the relative drop in support was largest among “pure independents” according to Gallup’s polling.
Obama’s approval rating has decreased among all six partisan/ideology groups Gallup tracks on a regular basis since January, but it has dropped the most — 10 percentage points, from 40% to 30% — among pure independents. These are the roughly 14% of national adults who neither identify with one of the two major parties nor indicate a leaning. Obama’s approval rating has declined by nearly as much — eight points — among moderate/liberal Republicans, from 29% to 21%.
An incumbent with only a 30 percent job approval among independents is an incumbent that should be in serious trouble. If it wasn’t for the fact that not one of the top Republicans presidential candidates has a net favorable rating, Obama would be doing much worse in the general election polls.
It is possible that the Obama campaign will find a way to win back independents next year, but wth little indication that the poor economy is going to improve over the next 11 months, that will be very difficult.
I suspect in the end the Obama campaign will go very negative. Independents aren’t happy with Obama’s job performance, but they don’t like the potential Republican nominees either. It will probably be easier to play on voters inherent dislike of Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich to make them unacceptable than it will be to convince voters that despite unemployment around 9 percent Obama is actually doing a good job.
76 Comments
Why does former Sen. Alan Simpson always look like he just ate a cat turd?
no one likes a con artist. I voted for change and I got more of the same.
Show up at every O rally & boo.
WTF???
83% Approval from “liberal Democrats”?????
Those folks are neither liberal, nor Democrats, if you approve of “prolonged” detention, assassination, even torture of American citizens. AMERICAN CITIZENS. When the fuck did LIBERALS start approving of THAT???
And not ONE OF THOSE can be blamed AT ALL on Republicans. EVERY ONE of those policies are brought to you by, and approved by OBAMA.
And I didn’t even mention starting wars without Congress’ approval. Liberals support that??? Democrats approve of that????
Fuck it, this fucking country DESERVES the fascism it’s going to get if you can’t look past red team blue team and just blindly support your team no matter what.
“Vote for Obama: He’s Marginally Less Disgusting Than the Other Guy”
Ahh, nothing like a stirring slogan to get me to the polls.
I hear the “We Suck Less” bumper stickets are already printed. I just don’t know if THAT is a winning strategy. Convincing people that Obama is “really doing a good job” is gonna be a hard sell. “Good job……compared to what???
I guess that’s to be expected when you sell out your supporters and it becomes glaring clear where your true allegiance lies.
Hence the reason why Obamney will bomb Iran just before November 2012.
Nah, he’s just been ODing on Jerk Pills since he was a kid.
I’m glad a pollster finally defined an Independent, instead of prior amorphous population. Then reading that Gallop figures 27% of our adults identify as Conservative Republicans shot the whole deal, IMO. Granted we’re imploding as a Society and have profound intellectual problems with our population and voters, but 27% head in the sand, bible thumping misogynists that define today’s Conservatives?
Mr Twine Spine.
Those approval ratings confuse the hell out of me. I know of nobody who approves of the job Obama is doing. Are they only polling DailyKos and WH staff?
Boxturtle (Smartest thing Obama is doing re:re-election is making sure he’s not primaried)
Those numbers cannot be “representative”. Perhaps they had a bad sample.
It used to be the Republicans had a patent on that tactic. Has the patent expired?
Dems, to Bush voters: “You bought it, you own it.”
“we suck less” is the only winning issue Obama has. I’m with Jon, ObamaLLP will go very negative very early and keep at it.
The only time you’ll hear Obama talking about what he’s done is when he’s addressing bankers and asking for money.
Boxturtle (And that will be carefully off the record, no electronic devices allowed)
No. But you’ve noticed Obama is really a republican?
Boxturtle (*rimshot*)
I’m more the type to hiss than boo. Hissing conveys deeper loathing, IMO.
Agreed.
Me too.
The fact that he’s stooping to the lowest form of campaign tactics is the undeniable proof.
And since he’s demonstrated his true colors, Diebold may have already programmed the election day results in his favor.
Sure glad I switched pary affiliation, from Dem to Independent.
Obama just does not in anyway deserve to be President. I cannot believe how he turned his back on all that voted for him. He needs and must go….that leaves me scared, but he is going to sell out to the Repubs anyway, we may as well put them in and get it over with. They have ruled him since he got in. He is an embarrassment.
“I suspect in the end the Obama campaign will go very negative.”
Always thinking about the national interest, that Obama. It’s baffling that O lost Independents. I mean, who knew that doing the opposite of what people want isn’t a successful political strategy?
I don’t care about O’s strategy. I just want to see him slither out of the white house.
Independents are the “vote for the lesser of two evils” voters. Partisan voters might hold their nose an vote for their party’s candidate but will still vote for party. Independents will inevitably go for Obama because the Rep. Candidate will be a clown. IMO it is the plan of the MOTU. No need to put your hand picked puppet in ofice when you already have your hand picked puppet in office.
I seem to remember Bush giving a speech somewhere and having a number of audience members stand up and turn their backs. I would organize one of those for Obama.
Boxturtle (Protestors shirts would have Wikileaks logos on the back)
Of course, there is no category for “Both parties suck: I am a registered _______.” That might imply that third parties are somehow an acceptable alternative.
Hope you don’t mind another HAPPY BIRTHDAY wish.
Sorry I didn’t make the diner this morning to say it then, but I do hope you have a great day and many more to come.
What is it, your 49th right, again??? LOL
Hasn’t anyone here wondered why all of the GOP presidential candidates are completely batshit crazy? I think it’s because the Republicans have no need to defeat Obama. Why should they?
Why should the Republicans waste their precious time and money running a presidential candidate to defeat Obama, when he’s the perfect Republican president. Obama is everything that a Republican would want from a president; he’s pro-war, pro-Wall Street, and pro- police state. So it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that Republicans and Democrats are colluding with each other to make certain that the vast majority of elected officials in Washington make policy decisions and enact laws with a pro-war/pro-police state/pro-Wall Street agenda in mind.
This is one of the dangers of having a duopoly, be it on Wall Street or Pennsylvania Avenue. If it were discovered that Verizon and AT&T were colluding with each other to keep cell phone rates artificially high, they’d be fined and broken up, and their CEOs would be thrown in jail.
So I’d like to see the same thing happen to the Republicans and Democrats when it’s discovered that they have been colliding with each other to only support political candidates who are pro-war, pro-Wall Street, and pro-police state. Now that it’s all too clear that Republicans and Democrats have become nothing more than two sides on the same coin, then it’s time to break up this corrupt political duopoly of ours, that’s based on a fascist blend of corporatism and militarism.
I agree 100%.
Yep
My write in candidate is black and female. She is a Labrador Retriever, her name is Maggie and she has a real excellent chance of winning given the two corrupt party system with no viable candidates, that is unless you like fascism.
Excellent comment.
“Hasn’t anyone here wondered why all of the GOP presidential candidates are completely batshit crazy?”
…………..
Actually THAT has troubled me. I’ve never agreed with the GOP philosophically, but they didn’t have such a stable of idiots and morons in the old days. There were decent republicans around. Something happened around 1994 and since then, they have people like Cantor, Gingrich, Boehner, Kyl, Perry, Bachmann etc that are just the most dastardly, despicable, black-hearted bastards imaginable.
I think Obama and the Democrats have moved so far Right that there is no space there anymore for the GOPers except to go off the deep end. If the ObamaDems went Left that would drive the entire duopoly Left. Unfortunately, Obama has made it clear that he would rather lose Right than win Left.
I always hang up on the phone polls. Wonder if that means they fill out my response for me?
And to top it off, he’s anti-MJ. He’s Richard Nixon reincarnated.
Hope that last line didn’t come off wrong, I was just joking around.
I just had my 49th birthday last week, again.
You ask why have independents moved away from Obama?
Look at that pic with Simpson and Bowles. Obama’s discussing how they can best destroy Social Security and Medicare. Independents like those programs, in fact, many of them are recepients of them.
It is mind bogglingly stupid that Obama thought by gutting those programs (in the name of the “deficit”) that moderates and independents would flock to him.
Sorry, I would first have to know where Maggie stands on the issues.
What is her postion on abortion?
I don’t think Obama ever thought he was going to win Independents by doing what he did. All the polls were staring him right in the face about what Indies wanted. But Obama refused because, i think, he is a Neoliberal ideologue. That silliness about winning the Independents was just a fig leaf (The Lieberman) for the Neoliberal policies Obama wants. To me, that is Obama’ greatest duplicity: above all else, he portrayed himself as a post-partisan non-ideologue. He lied.
I don’t mean to pry, but what country do you live in because I want to move there. You can’t possibly be referring to the USA with this statement. That scenario will never happen here.
What you said way up top. On steroids. With a hardon.
I’m a registered Independent.
I turned against Obama when he hired… Geithner, Summers and Emanuel in November of 2008. I knew then that we had been PLAYED.
Obama is nothing more than a corrupt politician… it’s all he is and all he ever will be.
I refuse to vote for a Democrat or Republican ever again… ALL are corrupt to the core. The time has come to break the back of the corrupt two party system.
Saw a new Iowa poll in which independents were going for Newt.
Maggie has my vote. Her loyalty is beyond question and her judgement will be a vast improvement from what we’ve seen in D.C. for decades. She’s probably been treated for fleas so dealing with congress won’t bother her. “Maggie 2012″ Ilike it.
NEWT GRingrich happened in 94. He coached his new congressmen to accuse and state falsehood since no one “will remember the retractions only the accusations”. That was the begining of the end for our civil discourse in politics
If she’s also house broken, that puts her over the top for me as well.
x2 — and we won’t know just how corrupt until he gets both a Republican House and Senate.
Anyone that believes a word Gingrich farts is an idiot and not worth wasting time on.
Someday we’ll get the picture of The “peoples ” president ,shrub and Karl kicking back over a beer and a couple of rails cut out on a mirror enjoying a belly laugh at what suckers the public are.
Eh? If the 1% want Obama to “win” in 2012, then Obama will “win.”
I agree with some prior commentaries about the patheticness of the Republican Clown Car Candidates. What a dreary & ridiculous & stupid bunch they are. As someone else opined, there used to be some Republicans that at least were somewhat smart, made some sense, and had some kind of concern for the true well-being of the USA. But this bunch? Fahgedaboudit. I simply don’t see how TeaGOPers can take these nuts seriously at all, but there you have: they do. It’s both embarressing and painfully depressing to witness it on display.
I don’t think the PTB felt like spending very much on an “opposition” candidate (which is laughable bc someone like Romney is pretty much indistinguishable from Obama, frankly), bc they like their current hired hand, Barack Hussein Obama, so much. From the perspective of the 1%, what’s not to LOVE with Obama? He’s done their bidding and then some.
My guess? Obama will “win” by a “landslide” in 2012…. and the polls will “show” a that “lot” of trad-Dem voters “voted” for Obama and are wallowing in “love” for Barry Zero. I simply don’t believe most polls anymore. Just more of the same old propoganda. Meaningless.
Gingrich has forgotten way more about grifting than Caribou Barbie will ever figure out in all of her life. Gingrich’s got a good grift going at the moment, as usual.
Newt is just this month’s “not-romney”. Even the republicans don’t like him. He’s a despicable bastard. His wife too. He’s destined for the 4% bracket soon like Perry, Cain, and Bachmann.
FWIW, my poll among carguys down here in Texas indicates that 2 out of 3 who voted for Obama will NOT vote for him again. Half will vote for Romney (if he get the nod) and half won’t vote at all, rather than cast a vote for a republican.
~
! OFG is exactly correct – we used to call such supporters ‘partisan hacks’. Tactic : dont encourage liars…when you are being lied to, choose to not re-vote them in
President Obama on 2012 election: “Don’t sit this one out.”
My reply: “Just watch me.”
~
refreshing to hear patriotic Americans describing what has happened here in America over the course a few years as the rise of fascism – and correctly so, as it is defined in the dictionary.
~
must not remember the unctious ‘end welfare as we know it’ Democratic president hanging heavy with former CIA Chief/US Prez, GHWBush over the past years -
one big club, my friend – and we aint in it
I decided it was all kabuki a long time ago. Can’t do lions & gladiators to entertain the peeps anymore, but wingnuts & batshit crazies are thought to be entertainment enough.
There’s a theory that things will have to get even worse than they already are — really bad — before we can generate sufficient widespread public support for necessary reforms. Accepting that premise for the sake of argument, then maybe Zero winning a second term is the best thing. With no need to construct fig leafs to protect re-election chances, he would be free to dispense with all pretense and show his real self to such a degree that even the Obots couldn’t deny it any longer.
Interesting. Well too many of my trad-Dem voter friends and acquaintances are still poised to pull the lever for Obama, I’m sad to report. A LOT of them get *very testy* if I even demurely (I can DO demure, when I need to) suggest that perhaps Barry Zero ain’t really batting for “our team.” Hate to say it, but many of these same citizens also abhor the Occupy movement and spout forth incendiary language about the Occupy protestors that would do a TeaGOPer proud. No lie. It’s pretty depressing.
So my take is that there’s still a LOT of Obots & other assorted O-supporters out there, but at the end of the day, Diebold will ensure that the 1% get “their candidate” to “win.” I’m guessing Zero at this stage, even though Romney is pretty interchangeable (not an accident, btw).
Not only Indies, apparently:
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/11/29/obamas-job-approval-drops-below-carters
Welcome to bottom, O-Man. Nobody can say you haven’t earned it.
God help America because Americans sure aren’t.
That thought has crossed my mind, as well. Plus I have had discussions with various friends of various political persuasions/awareness, who would agree that things still have to get a LOT worse for the majority of the 99% to frickin’ wake up to reality.
The problem is that we “regulars” at FDL get real news, such as today’s zingers about Paulson openly admitting to VAST CRIMINAL activity. Yet nothing will happen, and most citizens will be totally unaware of it. They’ll be fed a TON of blather about Herman Cain’s sexual peccadillos.
IMO, I think the PTB knew FULL WELL what Cain’s sex life was like and very deliberately gave him the nod to go on the grift train. Cain is providing quite *convenient* distractions in the Kabuki show called the “Republican Primary”, is he not?? I don’t think Cain was any “accident,” and I think the PTB knew all about his adultry, etc. JMHO, of course.
Cain is a Koch creation.
One of the RWM’s tactics is to choose a totally flawed candidate of teh disadvantaged group, which makes the other side (traditionally Ds) criticize him, allowing original selector to accuse opponent of racism, sexism, etc.
“Obama is everything that a Republican would want from a president; he’s pro-war, pro-Wall Street, and pro- police state”
He’s better than a Republican in that regard because he gets the Democrats to go along with it and anyone who doesn’t gets hippy punched as an extremmist. Back when it was Bush doing things, it was Bush who was seen as extreme and has actions considered partisan, but now with Obama he’s got everything Bush did to now be the bipartisan consensus as well as even going beyond that. Bush merely tortured, but Obama goes to war without Cognressional opproval and assassinates citizens without trial.
Nixon created the EPA, while Obama has sold the environment to the highest bidder on Daley’s speed dial.
“Cain is a Koch creation.”
They might have set him up to fail. the Kochs could be quite thrilled with Obama privately despite whatever is said publicly. Keep in mind that the Kochs funded the DLC. Koch Industries was on the DLC executive council and Koch Industries had two members of the DLC board of trustees. Remember when Obama was saying how safe deep sea drilling was right before petronobyl?
My reaction exactly!!!!
Bush voters to Dems: you bought it [him; Obama], you own it.
wbgonne, i think you nailed it here. the duopoly has moved so far right that the only rethugs that could differentiate with the typical blue dog centrist dem candidate, were the craziest of the crazies: the bachmans, gingrichs, cantors, and the rest were all enabled by centrist dems led by the Clinton crew initially, now the Obama crew.
If the duopoly was left of center, as is the majority of the country, then the wrecking crew of Boehner, McConnel, DeMint, Cantor etc. would still be known as “those crazy assholes no one pays any attention to.” Centrist dems have made them into “those crazy assholes who run our country.”
Important point you’re making that needs to be stated again and again:
Obama’s greatest threat to this country is that he shut down Democratic opposition to policies that have traditionally been Republican, but are now Democratic [destroying social security & Medicare; torturing; warrantless wiretaps; more tax cuts for the rich, etc.]
Whatever identity the Dems used to have as a party that cared about the “little guy,” unions, civil rights, the environment, etc. has been completely demolished by Obama. He won’t stand up for any of those “traditional Democratic values,” and he’ll crush any Democrat who attempts to.
Whoever attempts to run as a “Democrat” in 2016 will have a nasty job cleaning Obama’s stench off him/her and the party.
What were Roman democrats up to the night Julius Caesar was encamped north of the Rubicon?
These people are going for the jugular: full blown Aristocracy complete with robes crowns titles scraping of the knee and all that.
Remember that it was less than 100 years ago that that shit was the dominant form of government, not ancient history.
The Tsar listened to records and watched movies and drove around in a car for God’s sake!
Modernity can support absolute despotism.
Mass strike is the only non-violent way to stop the total loss of freedom.
This is one of the reasons why I’m voting for Darcy Richardson in the D primary. We can’t expect a guy this soul-sucking to pick up a general election.