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As we get closer to the November election, Americans’ satisfaction with how things are going in the country has fallen in recent months from already low levels, according to Gallup:
Compared with May, satisfaction ratings are down nine percentage points among Democrats (from 43% to 34%) and three points among independents (20% to 17%), while they are up three points among Republicans (9% to 12%). Democrats remain much more satisfied than either independents or Republicans.
Low satisfaction ratings are an ominous sign for a president seeking re-election. Today’s 20% satisfaction among all Americans is similar to the final ratings prior to the 1980 and 1992 elections, when Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were defeated for re-election. In November 1979 (Gallup did not ask about satisfaction in 1980), 19% of Americans were satisfied with the direction of the country, and in August-September 1992, 22% were.
In contrast, Ronald Reagan (48% in 1984), Bill Clinton (39% in 1996), and George W. Bush (44% in 2004) were re-elected at times when Americans were much more satisfied with national conditions.
Rightly or wrongly, when Americans think things are going badly in the country, they tend to blame the person they see as being in control of the country, the President.
President Obama is going to have a very hard time crafting a campaign message that acknowledges the fact that people are becoming less satisfied with the state of the country while still somehow convincing them that it isn’t his fault. With trouble in Europe getting worse and little sign the American economy will soon start seriously growing, the Obama team is facing some seriously headwinds.
38 Comments
IMHO Obama has one small hope of reelection. He needs to go populist. Attempts at showing Mitt to be more corporatist than Obama will fall flat.
Neither the economy nor the trajectory of the economy will improve enough for Obama to win. He needs to show us that he represents the people, not the corporations.
Failure to prosecute Wall Street (compliments Holder and his revolving door with Covington) and failure to allow discussion on TPP are just a couple of many corporatists actions that, collectively, have already doomed his candidacy.
Where do all these people come from, who think everything is fine?
As far as I can tell, that number should be 1%.
The Mittster just needs to keep talking.
His colossal fuck up yesterday trying to score points saying the Fed Gov doesn’t have anything to do with teachers, police and firefighters was a classic.
Awfully vague question, though, isn’t it? I think surveys that ask what issues people are most dissatisfied on, or which they think are most important, are a lot more helpful than a general ennui poll.
Take a poll of your friends and multiply by a factor to get to 375 million and you will have better info than any MSM poll.
It takes as a general rule about 6 months for an economic change good or bad to be felt in the economy at large. With Jobs and homes economic issues being the biggest issues voters care about Obama is in trouble. But gas prices dropping might undo some of the damage.
The more gas prices drop the more the cost of everything delivered by truck drops. The less money people have to spend to fill up their gas tanks.
Since the price of gas is dropping now the effects of those prices dropping should hit just in time for the election.
This won’t counter act much low job numbers and the bad housing market but it will do something.
It’s still $4.23 a gallon here in Vancouver…..
Yes give us the people who are suppose to be his base a reason to vote for him. Obama can keep trying to win over racist Tea Baggers but hey if the girl is not all that into you she just is not all that into you.
Why be a stalker just move on O and go after the girl who likes you…before she starts thinking your creepy stalking the Tea Bag girl.
( for the record I’m not a girl) :)
He apparently hasn’t learned from Perry. Just so many toes you can shoot off on one foot before you look “unbalanced”.
$3.39 here in Houston for regular.
Hey, what can I say, we MAKE it here.
What if you get 0%????
Got a factor for that?
That is a zero right not an O?
I know west coast is screwed but
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0613/Gas-prices-fall-amid-lower-US-retail-sales
I think the west coast had an oil refinery shut down we need spare capacity to process the oil we do have. I heard the oil companies closed down oil refineries rather than get them up to environmental standards.
Plus less oil made into gas does artificially jack up the price.
The oil companies have huge profits the next time Mitt or Sarah say Drll baby Drill Obama should say fine if the oil companies bring back online all the oil refineries they shut down first.
Otherwise we can drill all we want but if we can’t turn oil into gas then the price goes up and the oil companies make more cash for the oil they do sell.
If the oil companies won’t do it we nationalize the closed down oil refineries.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/angry-about-high-gas-prices–blame-shuttered-oil-refineries.html
What oil companies are losing money but they still post record profits? Cognitive Dissonance
If Obama had fought to implement job creation policies that would actually have improved the plight of the 99%, like infrastructure maintenance and repair, rather than slavishly enriching Wall Street, the Health Insurance Industry, and the MIC at the expense of the masses, he wouldn’t have a problem getting a second term. He’s reaping the results of his inaction on our behalf, but then he’s not really one of us.
http://abarrelfull.wikidot.com/refineries-that-are-closed-down
Demand for gas might now be at 15 year lows but the oil companies have been screwing us for decades even before that.
Obama needs to demand the oil companies create jobs or he will nationalize them.
Lets see Sarah and Mitt Scream Drill Baby Drill now:)
New definition of “Losing Money” is not making as much money as some other guys at the club said they were making.
See, voters are not as stupid as we’ve told to think.
The leaked document characterizing Obama’s willful contempt for the well-being of the working public, and our shared environment, has certainly cratered any “public satisfaction” that may have had any unlikely existence, on my part.
Trade pact, my ass.
I’d already decided that the entire national political class is a fraud as far as public service goes, the political class is an extension of an over-entitled, profoundly self-serving capitalist ruling class into the public sphere. I’d already decided that “democracy” in the US is at best a sad joke and at worse a profoundly corrupted device that actually makes things worse, given how rigged the system is.
Now that we can see, though, that in the aftermath of an economic crisis, with a middle class sinking into the mire, and after four years of doing nothing on the environment, that the Obama team is really just another group of corporate raiders. If the bank bailouts and “health care” “reform” law weren’t evidence enough, the “trade pact” is proof.
I am completely done with any notion of personal participation in this fraud of a political system, and I certainly will never place an iota of faith in any politician or elected official. They’re as bad as the CEOs.
Eh? I still know MANY Obama supporters, who regularly regale me with how much *better* our economy is, how it’s ALL and soley due to how “hard” Obama has worked for “us,” and how absolutely horrid would be if Mitt Rmoney “won.”
Well I can’t disagree with the latter sentiment, but all the earlier stuff just drives me nuts.
That said, there are still *just enough* citizens who are more or less “middle class” and still able to lead a “good life,” and frankly, they have blinders on & don’t give a damn about anyone else. That’s my take on it bc I truly don’t know how it is that they cannot see what’s going on. These people LOVE Obama and think he’s just great and will not hear ONE word against him.
One of my most fervent American exceptionalism pals literally had her breath taken away when I told her that someone I know working in the USA on an H1(b) visa from India is very prepared to go back to India bc his standard of living there is *better* than here.
My friend was gob-smacked to hear this. Simply couldn’t believe it that someone would prefer India to America, Fuck Yeah!
Blinders….
Barry Zero will “win” in Nov if the PTB want him to. I’m still betting that Obummer will “win,” but not by a “landslide.” Ever hear of Diebold?
Yep but think of it this way if the oil companies were not run by idiots who jack up the price of gas artificially restricting supply by closing oil refineries then would we have as many Hybrid and high MPG cars on the road today gas demand is at a 15 year low despite 15 years of population growth:)
The morons are screwing themselves.
Yes. Agree on all points.
The uber wealthy class will foul their own nest but then move on to a new nest. Most are bat shit crazy not idiots per se and operate under delusions of grandeur based on inverse conscience and perverse logic. We really have to change the upper crust every Century or two don’t we?
Oh, but if Obama does win, he can be more, “flexible”.
LMAO, really?
He can bend over backwards even farther?
When the wealthy don’t die from wars we need plagues to get rid of them no plagues then they have to get so inbred and powerful that they make mistakes taking down our entire society in the process before they can fall.
Its funny but antibiotics might just be the cause of America’s decline.
In what universe do the oligarchs live that they cannot see how all of this is going to end? It’s not a pretty ending for either side, and has the potential to be much worse for the oligarchs and a new beginning for everyone else.
Can a man have negative balls?
Yes they are THAT inbred and that powerful nobody can say the Emperor has no clothes.
This was all so very predictable in 2009 as soon as Obama was elected, just like the shellacking the Dems got in 2010. He’s walked away from taking on the people who caused the world economic collapse, did he think there was going to be no downside to that decision?
Note to Obama: when you have the Republican party and their elite rulers on the floor, and you’ve got your foot on their neck – step down hard – that’s what it takes to be a transformational President.
The Obama Ship is sinking fast, thus all the leaks.
Obama thinks a NAFTA deal with ASIA is going to help the un-employed and under-employed? and you thought Sarah Palin was Moron
How long before Dems start the CYOA plan “Cover Your On A$$”
It is going to be each Dem Crook for themselves
This level of deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the way things in this country are going is just about the most constructive thing produced by our current political system.
It is hard to imagine that our government can weather a few more years of anger and discontent like this. A majority of the population already has given up their belief in its legitimacy. A growing number of people are beginning to seriously question our economic system and model of government for the first time in decades. And what can they do? If they turn up the brutal forms of oppression too much more, they risk uncontrollable public backlash and insubordination amongst their own forces. Rigging elections so that one party may maintain power indefinitely would further crater faith in the fairness of our elections. Power changing hands between Democrats & Republicans as the number of Americans suffering economic hardship continues to spike erodes faith in the meaningfulness of our elections. Even if they try to create an astroturf ‘centrist’ third party they will be doomed as long as the average person’s financial situation continues to worsen. The elites are overplaying their hand greatly and I think the results will begin to show soon.
Sure, the majority of the public is happy to paddle about in the sea of ignorance and irrelevance the media has created…but that lasts only so long as people are economically comfortable. As of today, even a heavy reliance on credit can barely deliver most Americans a high standard of living. The deterioration of this situation is inevitable given that we have one wing of establishment politics that believes we should make the barest minimum paper “reforms” to save capitalism (as if this were the noblest end which could be pursued by our society!) and another that believes that we should allow capitalism to be totally unrestrained in its rapaciousness and immorality!
The PTB don’t care if Their D or R candidate wins. The important thing is that the MOTU win with either candidate.
I agree completely. With so much inbreeding among the uber-wealthy, immune systems used to get compromised. Now with all the good drugs, THAT herd just ain’t gettin’ thinned out so fast.
I know this isn’t an original idea, but, it’s proven to be effective…… GUILLOTINES.
Hey, hold on, give it some thought.
Yep. Kiss his own ass.
Seriously, this Asia Trade Pact, anda it’s leaks, could do serious damage to Obama’s campaign. The blogosphere is really beating him up about this.
I’m amused by those who think that if Obama is re-elected, he will be “free” to move to the left, as if moving to the left is what he really wants to do, but can’t, because of “political realities.”
Has anyone considered that he will, in fact, be free to move to where he really wants to be, which is much further to the right? After all, he won’t have to worry about placating the abused hordes who still believe that Obama is actually liberal, let alone progressive.