Mideast Record-Courier Polls: Presidential Approval

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

This poll is for all registered voters and will run for three days.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Approve.

He's facing an impossible situation, literally impossible. What's he supposed to do? He's got far more patience than what I have. Right wing malcontents who say he's not leading couldn't lead the way out of a wet paper bag, so whatever. Bore is doing what he can with next to nothing.

I wouldn't say Kalwejt and Windjammer are "right-wing malcontents", but they've criticized Bore's handling of the crisis too.

Look, I'm a self-described progressive; I voted for Bore twice, spoke strongly on his behalf when others in my party were deserting him in February, and consider his first term to have been a great success. That said, I feel like he's been invisible of late, at that is very troubling in times like these. I can't speak for what's been going on within the administration, and I certainly won't blame him for the current situation, but I do think he should be doing more. Even some bland patriotic blather - "rally 'round the flag", "Atlasia's best days are before us", etc. - would be better than the radio silence we've had recently.

I was only here for the second half of Lumine's Administration, but I think it's fair to say that he was a superb communicator. Keeping the public up-to-date with the goings-on in Nyman is extremely important, and one of the main distinguishers between an average presidency and a great one. The foremost leaders of the Old Union - Clay, Lincoln, the Roosevelts - were the ones who went back to their constituents and said, 'these are the problems I'm trying to fix, here's why they're important, and this is what I'm doing to fix them'. It might seem superficial, and it's certainly no substitute to good policy, but keeping in touch with the people could do a lot to keep the game going.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

It might seem superficial

It very much is, and this is really the point, I think. At any rate, right now I don't think a five thousand word speech about the fact that Atlasia has gone over the hill would accomplish anything. It would only be "words, words, words." But some are good at that, as well as BSing and appearing modest when they're anything but.

I don't expect a 5,000 word speech, nor do I believe that we can BS our way through the current crisis. To say that words count for nothing, however, or that communicating with the public doesn't matter, is simply not true. The power of the president to effect policy stems in large part from his ability to use his office as a "bully pulpit" to influence public opinion. Sometimes this is superficial, but other times (like when you're trying to get signatures for a Constitutional Convention, for instance) the president's ability to spur the masses to action is indispensable. Men like Griffin, Windjammer, and Cris have been publicly campaigning for a Constitutional Convention for weeks, with the result that we are four signatures away from this actually happening. I do wonder if we might not have reached this point earlier if the President had stepped forward and taken the helm of the reform movement.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I'm going to have to agree with Truman here, and it should be noted Bore did use the Presidency to good effect in his first term when it came to his push for electoral reform, which many of us where more than happy to support. During these times we would not have that sort of silence from, say, Duke or Polnut.

Regarding DemPGH, and despite the success he has found in a couple new positions he still seems to believe his 90% disapproval rating was a result of everybody else being a bitter right wing hack out to sabotage him, so there is not much to be said there.

I was a big a critic of DemPGH's tenure as anyone but he's absolutely correct here. People are using bore as a convenient scapegoat for the far more serious structural problems that are killing this game. It's pathetic.

For the record, I'm not blaming Bore for Atlasia's problems (which are obviously beyond his control), I'm saying he could be doing more to rally public support for reform.