The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[pbrower2a]

SurveyUSA has just released their August tracking numbers, previous month in paranthesis:

A great day for the coming Union of Christian and Corporate States, if you believe these polls:

Alabama: 40/58(42/56)
California: 62/33(66/30)
Iowa: 45/51(56/40)
Kansas: 45/51(41/53)
Kentucky: 36/61(41/55)
Minnesota: 53/44(51/46)
Missouri: 48/50(55/42)
New Mexico: 52/46(61/37)
New York: 58/38(63/34)
Oregon: 54/39(54/42)
Virginia: 42/54(44/49)
Washington: 51/46(56/41)
Wisconsin: 45/50(50/45)

They are playing for keeps this time. There won't be any elections possible to challenge the basic reality after 2012. Get your passports ready if you are a liberal or something other than a fundamentalist Christian.

[pbrower2a]

Low Obama approvals in Summer '09 will unquestionably lead to the Autumn '12 election of Mitt Romney, who will institute a fundamentalist Christian theocratic state.  With no elections.  Duh!

There will be elections, but the Rove-like figures will arrange things so that there will be nothing like 2006 again. People will be able to vote 'wrong', but they will be taxed to hell while getting no public services. Democrats might win in places like the Sixteenth District of New York, and might be allowed enough leeway to win the electoral votes of places like Rhode Island and Vermont, and successors of Charlie Rangell and Maxine Waters might give  stirring speeches about the responsibilities of the government to the poor -- but it will be about as irrelevant as speeches in the Volkskammer of the old DDR (East Germany) from the tolerated opposition parties that "knew their places" in the "socialist" order. GWB-like figures will run the country into the ground until gross diplomatic blunders put a dictatorial America at war with entities like the EU, Russia, Japan, or China with the likely end of the order.

American wages and working conditions will be abysmal -- the sorts that encourage Americans to emigrate for better opportunities. The fastest-growing job category will be "domestic service". Peonage will be the normal relationship between management and capital. Children will be educated to believe that the most rapacious plutocrats are the most generous benefactors possible, and that such is the Will of God.

[pbrower2a]

By the "Rove-like figures," I presume you mean Mormons?

Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I don't think that Karl Rove is a Mormon. His religious heritage means little in view of his ruthlessness.

[pbrower2a]

It may also be time for Obama to make an effort to rebuild the Bill Clinton coalition. It is time that he starts appearing in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma -- yes, Oklahoma with its two fascist Senators -- and telling people in states that rejected him so thoroughly in 2008 what they have to gain from liberalism.  Visiting states that were on the margin in 2008 may not be enough. He surely maxed out in places like Indiana and North Carolina, and he won't be able to count on them in 2012.

It's time for him to bring out the fact that poverty greatly reduces not only the quality of life, but also the length of life, and that poor whites and poor blacks in fact have something in common. Poor people are cheated in America, whatever their region and ethnicity.

Obama may not be the model of a fiery populist -- but he might be wise to prepare to become one just to push his favored programs -- the ones that will have him remembered as a great figure in American or a tantalizing figure in American history.

[pbrower2a]

It may also be time for Obama to make an effort to rebuild the Bill Clinton coalition. It is time that he starts appearing in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma -- yes, Oklahoma with its two fascist Senators -- and telling people in states that rejected him so thoroughly in 2008 what they have to gain from liberalism.  Visiting states that were on the margin in 2008 may not be enough. He surely maxed out in places like Indiana and North Carolina, and he won't be able to count on them in 2012.

Obama has ZERO chance in any of those states you listed with the exception of maybe Texas.

He has a chance in Indiana and North Carolina, but Texas is more likely than any of the Clinton-but-not-Obama states.

[pbrower2a]

The things being posted in this thread remind me of why no matter how far left I move on some issues, I will never be able to become a Democrat. A Corporate and theocratic state will come in 2012 because the election will be rigged? When someone basically comes out and says that the only legitimate elections are those won by Democrats, then I tune them out.

It's the ones after 2012 that would be rigged.

[pbrower2a]

The things being posted in this thread remind me of why no matter how far left I move on some issues, I will never be able to become a Democrat. A Corporate and theocratic state will come in 2012 because the election will be rigged? When someone basically comes out and says that the only legitimate elections are those won by Democrats, then I tune them out.

No Democrat actually believes those things besides pbrower.

He probably believes Diebold rigged the 2004 election too.

No. Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State in Ohio in 2004. Add to that a smear campaign that incorporated forgeries, including one putting John Kerry and Jane Fonda in the same place at the same time (lighting patterns indicate a forgery due to light striking them from different directions) and a campaign of manipulation of fear of international terrorism.

Obama played a beat-the-cheat strategy and won in 2008.

I simply have no faith in any honor of the Hard Right in America -- people who act as if Niccolo Machiavelli were a Founding Father.

[pbrower2a]

The things being posted in this thread remind me of why no matter how far left I move on some issues, I will never be able to become a Democrat. A Corporate and theocratic state will come in 2012 because the election will be rigged? When someone basically comes out and says that the only legitimate elections are those won by Democrats, then I tune them out.

No Democrat actually believes those things besides pbrower.

He probably believes Diebold rigged the 2004 election too.

No. Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State in Ohio in 2004. Add to that a smear campaign that incorporated forgeries, including one putting John Kerry and Jane Fonda in the same place at the same time (lighting patterns indicate a forgery due to light striking them from different directions) and a campaign of manipulation of fear of international terrorism.

Obama played a beat-the-cheat strategy and won in 2008.

I simply have no faith in any honor of the Hard Right in America -- people who act as if Niccolo Machiavelli were a Founding Father.

Oh! Obama is so great that he can beat a rigged election! All Hail Lord Obama!

I don't want to go too far with this. The GOP was able to manipulate the consequences of the September 11 attack for every bit of political gain possible. In 2004 the Bush campaign manipulated terror warnings to scare people into voting for them. By 2006 they recognized that the gig was up. They could rig a small margin and make things look close, but not a huge gap. In 2008 the gap got even larger because of GOP bungling of the economy.

That's enough for 2008. The GOP continues to attract the most ruthless of political operatives  -- at one time, Lee Atwater, and more recently Karl Rove. The GOP can make things very profitable for a small group of economic elites at the expense of everyone else, and those economic elites don't want to relinquish the power that they had when Rove was Party Boss and wielded dictatorial powers -- once the Hard Right gets power back.

I just don't trust the b@stards. Enough said.  

[pbrower2a]

More slouching to the Right:

[pbrower2a]

I am shocked at the speed of Obama's decline in recent weeks. There has been no fluctuation at all. He's gone straight off the cliff. When is he going to bottom out? I thought maybe he'd get a small bounce when Kennedy died, but that hasn't happened.

I don't think the public is giving Bush a pass so much as they disapprove of Obama's actions. He's running up the debt at a pace that makes Bush look like a sissy. On top of that, he's wanting to add another trillion to it with the healthcare reform, even after it looks like our recovery may not be a strong as we thought, which will lead to a larger debt down the road. That's certainly why I disapprove of him now. I understand he came in under difficult circumstances, but the stimulus, which hasn't done a thing, and now healthcare reform have turned me completely off, not to mention the Big Brother policies (email the WH if your neighbor is acting fishy, I thought we were done with that when Bush left office?).

Debt is invisible. It's not until people start seeing it in tax increases or cuts in public services that they see it.

The proposed healthcare reform is part of the problem, and the Right has been operating a vicious smear campaign. It's all soundbite-scaled lies, but they are vicious lies.

"Death panels"... "They will kill your grandmother"... Obama = Hitler

It's easier to tell a simple lie than to refute it. It's easy to press "Send All" to everyone in the e-mail box and far more difficult to examine the facts. People will need to see results in order to see the lies if they don't try to look at pages of a PDF.

[pbrower2a]

More slouching to the Right:

AL = yellow

Plz also colour all of NE in yellow.

I can recognize the Alabama poll as spurious, but NE-02 isn't. Obama actually won it, and the poll for Nebraska was statewide. I'm not changing Tennessee, Utah, South Dakota, or South Carolina until I see new polls, either. It's up to you to recognize that those polls are old.




   

[pbrower2a]

Here's how things probably were when Obama was at the nadir of his recent polling:

on the way to a catastrophic defeat before even Sarah Palin (), with America destined again to be committed to Jesus Christ and pure plutocracy as its only available saviors from... whatever.  Enjoy it, right-wingers; you might enjoy this snapshot:

Obama                             220

Indeterminable                  31

God's Appointed Leader  287

You may need to visit an art gallery or a national park to see something more beautiful, according to your tastes. Mercifully the Hard Right won't get a chance to sell Yellowstone and Yosemite away to clear-cutting loggers.

Recent nationwide polls over 50% approval  suggest that we will start to see things more like this:

Note the change in Virginia.

Remember: a few states have yet to be polled, and rules are rules with statewide polling.

Here's how I think America will look with a 52-47 split:

Much like 2008!

[pbrower2a]

Much like 2008!

Uh, duh...it's only 2009.

1996 was much like 1992.

2004 was much like 2000.

Political cultures of the states aren't likely to change much over the next three years.  

[pbrower2a]

Here's how I think America will look with a 52-47 split:

Make Indiana slightly republican and I agree, although i'm assuming that Deleware is a mistake.

Much like 2008!

Delaware is indeed an oversight. Indiana? Obama maxed out in Indiana in 2008 (think of Reagan in Massachusetts in 1980 and 1984), but he's still got the campaign machine, and enough of Indiana is in the Illinois media market.

In any event, Arizona, Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina are the states most likely to flip.  

[pbrower2a]

What is this Arizona is very likely to flip farce? I know the favorite son effect blah blah blah occurred in 08 but does anyone remember AZ has voted GOP in every election (excluding 96) since 1952, both Senators are Republicans (Kyl being one of the MOST conservative in the Senate and McCain is moving sharply to the right as well) and the GOP controls the Governor's Mansion and BOTH houses of the State Legislature and have controlled all those marbles for some time. Arizona is bright red despite Clinton being able to take it once in a 3 way race.

Arkansas has two Democratic Senators, and Obama lost it by 20 points. Go figure. Obama could easily lose Arkansas by 30 points in 2012 if Mike Huckabee is the GOP nominee.

If I were to tell you that I believed that John Thune would probably win South Dakota by about a 20% margin in in 2012 as the GOP Presidential nominee or that the GOP would do 5% with him as VP nominee instead of someone else, would you consider that preposterous?

It's not farce. John McCain won the state by 8.5%. A favorite son typically has about a 10% advantage in a state over a non-Favorite Son.  If the GOP had run someone else, then the state would have been a legitimate battleground state. A politician respected within his own state has an obvious advantage over someone from outside. That politician already has a campaign network in place that he can easily turn to winning that State's electoral votes and has a well-known record, and local media know the candidate very well. Station managers are tempted to tout the Favorite Son in news stories.

Take a good look at Texas. Obama had no real chance to win Texas ... little more than did John Kerry. George W. Bush absolutely crushed Kerry in Texas (61-38) in roughly a 50-50 election; McCain beat Obama in Texas roughly 55-44. That is a swing of twelve points; that is huge. McCain did well in Texas, but not as well as someone who has real connections to the state. A twelve-point swing in Arizona even in a 50-50 election  makes Arizona a 50-50 state.

The effect is so strong that it works even for losers. In 1972, Senator George McGovern's home state South Dakota gave him 45% of the vote. Sure, he lost South Dakota and 47 other states... but he did better in South Dakota than in some states that were more decidedly liberal in their politics -- including Iowa, Wisconsin,  Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. McGovern was well respected in South Dakota as a war hero and on farm issues... and he was absolutely crushed in North Dakota (36%) and Nebraska (29%) that year. Do you think either North Dakota or Nebraska greatly different from South Dakota?

In a close election? Look at 1976. Gerald Ford, who had never gone beyond the House of Representatives, won Michigan 52-47 while losing Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York -- states generally understood to be politically similar to Michigan -- to Jimmy Carter, someone not from the Northeastern quadrant of the United States.  

(OK, Obama actually did better in 2008 in Massachusetts than did John Kerry did in 2004... which may say much about John Kerry and Barack Obama. But that's rare).  

I can make a concession on Arizona: if Senator John Kyl is the GOP nominee for President, then he will win Arizona. VP nominee? He could swing the state in a close election.

[pbrower2a]

Arizona's voters have demonstrated a loyalty to the GOP at all levels of the government consistently. The 2008 vote is muddied by the fact that so many areas broke with the GOP that normally vote for it. Ignoring the way people voted in one cycle and then running in and saying there is a massive "favorite son" effect and next time the state will flip after 50 years for absolutely no reason is absurd.

I'm not denying there IS a favorite son factor but having it be absent doesn't mean a 50 year or 20 or 30 or whatever voting streak will change.

John McCain did less well in Arizona than one would expect in a state voting so firmly Republican and thus having a GOP political culture. Arizona is most similar in its demographics to Nevada and Colorado.  The 2008 vote suggests that economic conditions and demographic change have eroded the certainty of Republican wins in subsequent years.  The Favorite Son effect masked the obvious fact that Arizona has been drifting D. Without a Favorite Son (and I doubt that John Kyl will be running for President) , Arizona willl be a legitimate battleground for the 2012 election.

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I don't live in  Virginia or North Carolina, so I can't fully explain their politics except to say that they have gone from being more rural than the national average to being more urban. It's arguable that Virginia has become a Northern state in its politics. North Carolina? Lots of Northerners  have brought their voting patterns with them. One joke about one North Carolina suburb is that Cary stands for Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.

Indiana? I live in southwestern Michigan, so I get to know a little about Indiana politics. In 2008 the state acted as if it had a Favorite Son -- Obama. The Favorite Son effect may be more relevant to news media than to campaign efforts. Much of Indiana media feed from or into Illinois, where Obama was a Senator.  Because of the state's off transportation network (despite its size, Indianapolis is not a great airline hub, and most air traffic in Indiana goes through Chicago), the state is ordinarily difficult to set up a campaign apparatus in from outside -- unless the other state is Illinois. About 90% of all air travel to or from Indiana goes through O'Hare International Airport, with a little going through Detroit and Cincinnati. The economy was messed up due at first to high energy prices (which hit the RV industry hard); those energy prices abated just as the financial  meltdown hit (people could better afford to drive RVs, but they couldn't get financing so easily). Ouch! Obama actually campaigned in Indiana, which Democrats from outside the area don't ordinarily do in a contested election.

Hillary Clinton would definitely have lost Indiana. JFK lost the state by 11 points in one of the closest elections ever, and neither Gore nor Kerry could get close.  It's hard to campaign in Indiana  from Massachusetts (JFK, Kerry), Tennessee (Gore), Georgia (Carter),  Arkansas (Clinton), or even Minnesota (HHH). Adlai Stevenson was from Illinois, but he couldn't win anything in the North. Hillary Clinton would have had a hard time campaigning in Indiana from New York. Oddly, Obama turned the table on McCain, exposing the difficulty of having to campaign in Indiana from a long distance.  

[pbrower2a]

Nevada(Kos)

Favorable 48%
Unfavorable 41%

http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2009/9/2/NV/357

 Obama up 7% in Nevada? The GOP could still win without Nevada, but it would be difficult.

Harry Reid is in trouble politically:

Harry Reid
                    FAV    UNFAV    NO OPINION
ALL                       36   52   12
MEN                       33   56   11
WOMEN               39   48   13
DEMOCRATS       58   32   10
REPUBLICANS       15   73   12
INDEPENDENTS    28   57   15
18-29               36   51   13
30-44               37   51   12
45-59               36   53   11
60+                       35   53   12

The Age Wave that helped Obama in 2008 isn't helping Senator Reed (D-NV)

At least he's not in the same trouble as his fellow Nevada Senator:


  John Ensign
                            FAV    UNFAV    NO OPINION
ALL                           28   53            19
MEN                           31   49            20
WOMEN                   25   57            18
DEMOCRATS           11   75            14
REPUBLICANS           49   26            25
INDEPENDENTS   26   57            17
18-29                   22   58            20
30-44                   26   55            19
45-59                   31   51            18
60+                           33   48            19

Need I spell it out: T-I-M-E   T-O   R-E-S-I-G-N

[pbrower2a]

Bush won Arizona by 6 in 2000 and 11 in 2004. McCain won it by 8 in a crappy GOP year. 2000 was an average GOP year and Bush took it by 6, so  the favorite son effect helped the GOP in a bad year but its ludicrous to suggest Arizona will magically flip in 2012 when it didn't stay Dem in 2000.

What is with the massive Indiana speech? You threw in some random statement about Ford winning Michigan but losing states that were much like it to Carter and you tried to link that to Arizona.

Indiana isn't ANYTHING like Michigan or Illinois (even in Indianapolis) I dont know if you;ve ever been there but just because some of the airwaves broadcast over from Chicago doesn't by any stretch of the imagination make it like IL and MI. Regardless, you threw some random statement at me about Carter winning non-Carter friendly states well Obama won states that had non-Obama friendly backgrounds, big whoop. What does it have to do with Arizona???
[/quote]

 

It's LOGISTICS and media penetration. Should Obama need Indiana in 2008, then he has an advantage in Indiana from the relative ease of reaching Indiana that nobody else can have. Obama's campaign headquarters are in Chicago, and his campaign can more easily get equipment into Indiana cities than will anyone else. You tell me: are there any direct flights between Little Rock and Indianapolis?

Indiana doesn't have to be as liberal as Illinois, Michigan, or Ohio to give Obama an advantage. Indeed, any Democrat would have to win three of the four surrounding states to have a chance at winning Indiana. Media penetration? Obama knows how to use media, and his staff knows Indiana media and Indiana media made his campaign in Indiana front-page news or the leading story.

The common wisdom before 2008 was that Indiana would never go to any Democratic nominee for President except in a 40-state blowout or with a Democratic nominee from Indiana. Such must now be modified: Indiana is nearly impossible for a Democratic nominee to win except  in a 45-state landslide or if the Democratic nominee is from a neighboring state (IL, MI, OH, KY), if not from Indiana itself, in a strong campaign. Wisconsin? Probably not.

Unless the GOP completely melts down, I'd give it about a 95% chance of winning Indiana in 2016.

If Indiana and Arizona have any connection in 2012 they could easily two states that change sides in 2012.

[pbrower2a]

I'm going to make a modification: orange is for polls that I consider indefensible because of their age  and because good evidence in surrounding states suggest that they are worthless:

Rationales:

1. South Carolina and Tennessee are much less Democratic than North Carolina and Georgia.

2. South Dakota is much less Democratic than Montana.

3. Utah is... Utah.

[pbrower2a]

NE-02 was polled a few weeks ago.

[pbrower2a]

NE-02 was polled a few weeks ago.

Results?

As I recall they were about 62% positive. it's not likely that those stick. Nothing was said of NE-01 or NE-03. Nebraska was polled statewide recently, and I cut NE-02 back a little.   

[pbrower2a]

One thing seems reasonably certain: Obama is not about to get a spike in his approval ratings analogous to that of Dubya eight years ago!

[pbrower2a]

Nothing really new:

This time orange indicates that a state had a positive poll for Obama when it was last polled, but long ago and now unlikely to have any value.

White would be for an exact tie.

[pbrower2a]

How old is NE-02? I know Obama's more popular there, but he only got 49% of the vote on election day. I doubt he still has a 50% approval there.

The South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and  Utah polls are from the winter of 2009. That from NE-02 is much newer, and the district votes very differently from the rest of Nebraska.

If the state is re-apportioned in a way in which Nebraska's Congressional districts are allotted latitudinally  (so that districts split Omaha) instead of longitudinally, then I would make the change.

NE-02 votes more like Missouri than like Nebraska as a whole.

[pbrower2a]

Colorado speaks!

Translated into a likely electoral result: