From the ArcaMax Publishing, Clarence Page Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/clarencepage/s-606970-879483
Watching President Obama's poll numbers slide in recent weeks takes me
back to the worst moments of the presidential campaign. I'm not
thinking of Obama's presidential campaign. I'm thinking five years ago
to Sen. John Kerry's losing campaign.
And I am wondering, as I did with Kerry, why didn't Obama see it
coming?
An ad campaign by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, backed by some
deep-pocket donors, torpedoed Kerry's strongest personal selling point
in the Massachusetts Democrat's presidential quest, his heroic Vietnam
record. By the time he responded to the charges, valuable weeks of
momentum were lost.
Obama's fast-response strategy avoided that sort of trap when the mud
came flying against him last year. But what happened to that
well-oiled machine when the August protests erupted against his health
care proposals at congressional town halls this year?
Where are the excited youngsters who dropped their video games, got
off the couch and turned out en masse for Obama last year? Hah! Young
folks aren't turned on by health care. They don't think they'll ever
get sick.
Instead, lots of us older folks turned out. They included seniors over
age 65 who are on Medicare and not likely to be affected by the new
proposals. You may remember that seniors also weren't supposed to be
affected by President Bush's Social Security reform proposals, but
that didn't stop them from turning out in protest. The more speeches
Bush gave around the country, the more opposition he faced until the
proposal died.
Obama faces a similar predicament as his poll numbers have plummeted
from their record-setting highs with record-setting speed. Tuesday the
president hit his lowest approval yet during his young term in office
-- 45 percent of voters in a daily Rasmussen Reports tracking poll
said they approve of the President's performance. Fifty-three percent
disapproved.
Although more than four out of five Democrats approve, and the same
percentage of Republicans disapprove, Obama's biggest headache is with
self-described independents. Sixty-six percent of them disapprove.
Granted, Rasmussen is just one poll, and daily tracking polls are by
nature very changeable. But other major pollsters have found similar
trends. Besides, Rasmussen's poll focuses on "likely voters." Most
others look at a sample of "all adults," which tends to give Obama a
larger percentage, but not of the people who are likely to be deciding
his reelection chances.
Why the slide? Let me count the ways:
Economic recovery appears to be happening, but not by much. Wall
Street is a leading indicator, but jobs are a lagging indicator. At
this rate, economists say, it could be months before we see an upturn
in jobs, despite promising news from Wall Street, and no one can say
how many months.
His stimulus package? Same problem. Economic experts say it has
softened the impact of the recession and begun to create some jobs,
but not as many as the economy has lost.
Bad recent news from Afghanistan has caused Obama trouble, especially
on his left, as his advisors call for more troops without providing
much of an exit strategy.
But Obama's slide appears to have come mostly because of mixed signals
from the White House as to how closely Obama will stick to a public
option to compete with private insurers in his final proposals.
His plan also has been hurt by the lack of a clear argument as to what
his proposal means for those of us who already have health care. It is
heartwarming to hear him argue belatedly that health care is a moral
issue. But the biggest motivator in politics is a very practical
question: Where's mine? Sure, our health care system is broken, but
Obama needs to answer those nervous swing voters who wonder, as an old
Johnnie Taylor tune goes, whether "it's cheaper to keep her."
Without strong leadership from the White House, the Senate has been
casting about for alternatives to a public option such as a national
system of nonprofit co-ops run by the insured instead of the
government. But no one is quite sure of what that might look like on a
national scale. As Susan Dentzer, editor of the Health Affairs
journal, recently put it, "The main definition of a co-op at the
moment seems to be that it's not a public plan and it's not private
health insurance. It's a Goldilocks -- 'something in-between.' "
Obama continues to display his famous cool, but a raucous autumn lies
ahead. It's not hard to see that coming.
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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com, or write to him c/o
Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY
14207.