The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread
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Hashemite
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« Reply #150 on: February 21, 2009, 10:45:28 PM »

I still don't understand the euphoria about Obama's approval ratings.  It's called a honeymoon you morons.  And Obama's approval rating has gone consistently down.  There is nothing to celebrate here.  Call me back at the end of the year.

In fact, his approval is tanking in the Rasmussen poll, down to 57% today.

Time to resign, I guess.
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Alcon
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« Reply #151 on: February 21, 2009, 11:12:48 PM »
« Edited: February 21, 2009, 11:15:29 PM by Alcon »

Probably not.

...

Of course I am going to try to make things seem better for my candidate than they might appear to be, everyone does that to some degree. But at no point after mid-September, did I ever believe McCain actually had a shot to win.

It's a natural human tendency to overestimate evidence to fit a precept.  Most people over-adjust toward what they want to be true.  Some people over-adjust toward pessimism, because then they're always pleasantly surprised.  Others (studly others with I-WA avatars) attempt to compensate artificially for this, by observing their biases and trying to create "weighted" auto-corrections.  And others use different methods of correction.  Corrections like these aren't perfect (or even close!), but they tend to be closer to reality than what our minds initially tell us.

Outright "try[ing] to make things seem better for my candidate than they might appear to be" is even worse than just working on those precepts.  It's, like, bad ESPN football analysis.  "Everyone" does not do that.  And, what's the point?  I guess, if the point of political analysis for you is to find creative ways to prove that what you want to happen, will happen, that's an option.  But, even ifyour goal is creative thinking, the resulting info is totally poisoned.  You could make it more useful.  As it is, the product of your analysis has nothing to with actuality.  It's useless.

I'm not advocating the way I (over)compensate, but knowing you have a bias and encouraging yourself to propagate it, is even worse than pretending that it doesn't exist.  Which is bad enough.  Things will inevitably end up not corresponding with reality.  If you're going in with the intent of making them correspond with reality as little as possible (that is, "make things seem better than they might appear to be"), why even bother advancing your theories?

So, if you're going for something other than realism...well, mazel tov with getting people interested in that.  Otherwise, I ask again:  What the hell?
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Rowan
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« Reply #152 on: February 21, 2009, 11:19:36 PM »

Probably not.

...

Of course I am going to try to make things seem better for my candidate than they might appear to be, everyone does that to some degree. But at no point after mid-September, did I ever believe McCain actually had a shot to win.

It's a natural human tendency to overestimate evidence to fit a precept.  Most people over-adjust toward what they want to be true.  Some people over-adjust toward pessimism, because then they're always pleasantly surprised.  Others (studly others with I-WA avatars) attempt to compensate artificially for this, by observing their biases and trying to create "weighted" auto-corrections.  And others use different methods of correction.  Corrections like these aren't perfect (or even close!), but they tend to be closer to reality than what our minds initially tell us.

Outright "try[ing] to make things seem better for my candidate than they might appear to be" is even worse than just working on those precepts.  It's, like, bad ESPN football analysis.  "Everyone" does not do that.  And, what's the point?  I guess, if the point of political analysis for you is to find creative ways to prove that what you want to happen, will happen, that's an option.  But, even ifyour goal is creative thinking, the resulting info is totally poisoned.  You could make it more useful.  As it is, the product of your analysis has nothing to with actuality.  It's useless.

I'm not advocating the way I (over)compensate, but knowing you have a bias and encouraging yourself to propagate it, is even worse than pretending that it doesn't exist.  Which is bad enough.  Things will inevitably end up not corresponding with reality.  If you're going in with the intent of making them correspond with reality as little as possible (that is, "make things seem better than they might appear to be"), why even bother advancing your theories?

So, if you're going for something other than realism...well, mazel tov with getting people interested in that.  Otherwise, I ask again:  What the hell?

Thanks for the lecture. If my goal in life was to please you then I might care, but since it's not, I will continue to be optimistic about my candidates chances, even if that is somehow unacceptable to you.
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Alcon
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« Reply #153 on: February 21, 2009, 11:23:47 PM »

That wasn't a lecture, that was a question with paragraphs!  A question with paragraphs!

I'm not asking you to be likable.  I'm just saying there are more private places to masturbate than Internet forums

Metaphorically speaking.
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Rowan
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« Reply #154 on: February 21, 2009, 11:30:50 PM »

That wasn't a lecture, that was a question with paragraphs!  A question with paragraphs!

I'm not asking you to be likable.  I'm just saying there are more private places to masturbate than Internet forums

Metaphorically speaking.

Isn't that the whole point of forums? So people can masturbate together? Metaphorically speaking of course.
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Alcon
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« Reply #155 on: February 21, 2009, 11:34:06 PM »

That wasn't a lecture, that was a question with paragraphs!  A question with paragraphs!

I'm not asking you to be likable.  I'm just saying there are more private places to masturbate than Internet forums

Metaphorically speaking.

Isn't that the whole point of forums? So people can masturbate together? Metaphorically speaking of course.

You're creeping me out.  Unmetaphorically.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #156 on: February 22, 2009, 12:53:07 AM »

I still don't understand the euphoria about Obama's approval ratings.  It's called a honeymoon you morons.  And Obama's approval rating has gone consistently down.  There is nothing to celebrate here.  Call me back at the end of the year.

Cut the allegations of stupidity.

Sure, it might be a honeymoon.  Note well that when the approval rating is above the percentage that voted for him, that something has gone right. The approval rating is above the voting percentage.

What could that mean?

1. That Obama has shown clearly what his administration will be like for until the next Presidential election.

Unlikely. Things can change rapidly. Nobody ever expected George W. Bush to preside over the most extensive interventions in the economy even as late as August 2008.

2. That he has made no severe and irreversible blunders.

That depends upon one's ideology.

3. That he has kept campaigning after winning the election.

That would be pathological if such were true.

4. He was a stronger candidate than the votes suggested in November.

That says more about John McCain than about Barack Obama. Considering how dreadful Dubya was, McCain could hardly have been anything less than an improvement.  Would McCain have similar approval ratings had he won? Maybe.

5. It's the normal respect for the winner if not an incumbent.

He will need to sacrifice some political capital to achieve what he wants to achieve, and both  the economy and extant wars stand to bite back.

6. He has fostered expectations that he can never achieve.   
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Rowan
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« Reply #157 on: February 23, 2009, 01:46:34 PM »

2/23/09:

Rasmussen 58%/40%
Gallup 62%/25%
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #158 on: February 23, 2009, 02:37:52 PM »

What Happened to the Hopemonger?

By David Paul Kuhn

Here's a fact that will probably shock you: Americans today have the same level of confidence in President Obama as they had in George W. Bush after his first month in office. According to Gallup, Obama's public approval rating currently stands at 63 percent, only a point above George W. Bush in late February 2001.

Few modern presidents have been greeted with such lofty expectations as Obama. That Obama now stands where Bush did eight years ago, on the eve of his first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, serves as a reminder of how quickly the demands of the presidency can sober even the most talented politicians.

Obama's popularity today, by Gallup's measure, is a few points higher than Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan at the infancy of their presidencies. He precisely matches George H.W. Bush. And excluding Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson who took office amid tragedy, and therefore earned staggeringly high early approval, Obama is notably shy of other new presidents. Jimmy Carter and John Kennedy had more than seven out of 10 Americans behind them at the close of their first February in office.

This is the stage Obama takes tomorrow. The hardest legislative battles are before him and the luster that greeted him on Inauguration Day is now behind him.

It's long been said that presidents are only as powerful as their public perception. Already, President Obama has lost a measure of his hopefulness at the moment he most requires it. The public seems to have noticed. And there are some in Washington who speculate that Obama's standing could still worsen.

"Obama is in a much weaker position than his poll numbers suggest and I think that the whole thing could collapse on him sooner rather than later," Doug Schoen, one of Bill Clinton's former pollsters, said.

That remains to be seen. But even at this early stage, Obama has already assumed a good deal of risk. With his first major legislative accomplishment, a $787 billion dollar economic stimulus bill, he has taken ownership of an economy that could quickly worsen.

Obama's potential legislative achievements ahead will be directly tied to his popularity, which has ebbed a couple points in recent weeks. The portion of the public disapproving of the president has also doubled over that period, from 12 percent to 24 percent.

Just last year, President Bush was unable to rally his own party around his bailout legislation because he no longer carried with him the perception of public support. There was a similar impasse a couple years earlier as Bush pushed for immigration reform.

Obama's challenges are far greater than Bush's at the outset of his presidency, as are his objectives. Obama's domestic agenda is the most ambitious since Lyndon Johnson.

President Johnson, however, reminds us of what can go wrong. LBJ aspired to be the greatest president since Franklin Roosevelt. But he escalated a war without end and lost control of the times. Obama's fate is not likely that of Johnson's. But despite the allusions to Roosevelt, comparisons to FDR may be no more apt.

Obama seems however not to be discussed in these sober terms. In fact the one person who could use less sober words, the president himself, seems too solemn in his first weeks.

Obama scoffed during the 2008 campaign at some in Washington considering him, in Obama's words, a "hope-monger." But this is not Obama’'s problem of late. The Democratic president is not offering Carter's malaise. But now some wonder whether the president is helping matters by repeatedly comparing the nation's hard times to its worst economic catastrophe, the Great Depression.

The unemployment rate remains a third of what it was in the first year of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency. FDR inherited a stock market that was 75 percent below its 1929 high. It took decades for the market to return to that high. Obama is right to worry about what more could happen, but he's hardly helping the markets when he repeatedly harkens to its most horrible era.

Moreover, it never helps a player who is in a slump to keep talking about it. So it is with the nation as well. There are now increasingly calls for Obama to move toward the more convincing and sanguine rhetoric of Roosevelt and Reagan. Last week, the president who came from a place called Hope (Arkansas) asked for more soaring words from the candidate of hope. Bill Clinton praised Obama's realism, but he added to ABC News that he “would like” Obama to conclude his speeches “by saying that he is hopeful and completely convinced we’re gonna come through this.” Clinton's talent is not just that he uses optimistic words, but that he conveys reassurance as well. Obama must do no less, especially since some of his ebb in popularity may be partially rooted in his more somber tone.

FDR owned this sense of optimism. His inaugural address framed fear as the antagonist with the famous line, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He spoke of overcoming the Great Depression in war-like terms, requesting similarly broad executive powers. He said what mattered was to “try something.” Obama has taken that lesson to heart. Yet FDR was able to do so, in part, because he kept the country believing that he could.

"You have a lot of people invested in this guy succeeding," said Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio of Obama. Fabrizio believes its “always better to under promise and over deliver.”

That may be true when it comes to legislation and predicting public support, but Schoen argues that a president must over deliver on the big picture. Obama's restrained optimism, in Schoen's view, is not helping a president already undermined by early mishaps, such as his problems with several cabinet nominations.

"Thirty days after Obama [took office] the Democrats face much more vulnerability than I ever thought was Possible," Schoen said.

Obama came into office with unrivaled good will. Now his early Bush-like level of popularity reminds his White House that goodwill can only do so much.

But that Obama remains slightly more popular than Reagan, after his first month, reminds the White House that a president can take on a lofty aura that sometimes eludes him early on. In January 1981, Reagan inherited the same unemployment rate as Obama. But Reagan conveyed in words and tone Americans indigenous optimism, as Obama still must.

Both Reagan and Obama began their presidencies with less than one in five Americans “satisfied” with the direction of the country. At the same time, today, like when Reagan first took office, eight in 10 Americans remain “satisfied with the way things are going in” their “own personal life.” Recently, the Pew Research Center found that 46 percent of Americans believe “the nation's economy will improve” in the next year. By comparison, 59 percent of Americans believe their personal finances will improve.

In other words, the people today seem more optimistic than their president. They haven't given up hope, and Obama's burden tomorrow is to demonstrate that neither has he.
David Paul Kuhn is the author of The Neglected Voter.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/what_happened_to_the_hopemonge.html
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #159 on: February 23, 2009, 04:01:56 PM »

We now discover how much hidden damage happened under our 43rd President.  The banking failures demonstrate the folly of Dubya's demagoguery of "every family owning a home" despite low incomes. The job losses demonstrate the tendency of entities once known as manufacturers becoming importers instead.

In late February 2001 Americans continued to bask in the Indian Summer of the aftermath of the Clinton era in which government was still small (give appropriate credit to the Republican-majority Congress that kept Clinton from enacting the big programs of his dreams, of course); eight years later we reel from massive corruption and incompetence in Big Business. Government takes over failing entities -- something unnecessary except for failures. Hank Paulson and George W. Bush were firm believers in free enterprise and had no proclivities toward socialism. Reality had a socialist bias in the autumn of 2008.

Dubya was much less a reformer than a socialist; reform would have made the government takeovers of business unnecessary.   
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Rowan
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« Reply #160 on: February 23, 2009, 05:11:20 PM »

We now discover how much hidden damage happened under our 43rd President.  The banking failures demonstrate the folly of Dubya's demagoguery of "every family owning a home" despite low incomes. The job losses demonstrate the tendency of entities once known as manufacturers becoming importers instead.

Uhh, I think you are confusing presidents. That was Clinton.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #161 on: February 24, 2009, 01:09:54 AM »

NYT/CBS News Poll:

63% Approve
22% Disapprove

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll is based on telephone interviews conducted Feb. 18 through Feb. 22 with 1,112 adults throughout the United States.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20090224poll-results.pdf

Washington Post/ABC News Poll:

68% Approve
25% Disapprove

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Feb. 19-22, 2009, among a random national sample of 1,001 adults including both landline and cell phone-only respondents.

http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1086a2ObamaatOneMonth.pdf
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #162 on: February 24, 2009, 01:26:33 AM »

This week we should also get fresh 15-state numbers from SUSA ...
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #163 on: February 24, 2009, 01:35:11 AM »

North Carolina (Civitas Institute):

65% Approve
16% Disapprove

The study of 600 registered voters was conducted Feb. 16 to 19, 2009. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008. The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4%.

http://www.wnct.com/nct/news/local/article/nc_president_obama_poll_results/32263/
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #164 on: February 24, 2009, 01:48:29 AM »

Obama should resign. It's clear that the American people have rejected his socialist, possibly Muslim, agenda.

DEMINT/CANTOR 2012
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Landslide Lyndon
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« Reply #165 on: February 24, 2009, 01:57:04 AM »

Obama should resign. It's clear that the American people have rejected his socialist, possibly Muslim, agenda.

DEMINT/CANTOR 2012

No way a leftist Jew f****t like Cantor will be on the ticket.

DeMint/Coburn!
And just in case that doesn't work, Santorum/Limbaugh.
Smiley
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Rowan
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« Reply #166 on: February 24, 2009, 11:00:58 AM »

Rasmussen Obama Approval 2/24/09:

Overall 59.5%/39.2%

GOP: 32.5%/66.8%
DEM: 86.1%/11.9%
INDY: 51.2%/47.8%

MEN: 51.6%/47.6%
WOMEN: 66.3%/31.9%

WHITE: 56.1%/43.2%
BLACK: 85.7%/8.8%
OTHER: 55.9%/43.4%
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #167 on: February 24, 2009, 03:22:56 PM »

SurveyUSA has just released the new February polls from 14 states:

Alabama:

48% Approve (-12)
45% Disapprove (+21)

California:

63% Approve (-14)
33% Disapprove (+18)

Iowa:

63% Approve (-5)
32% Disapprove (+10)

Kansas:

54% Approve (-8)
37% Disapprove (+13)

Kentucky:

57% Approve (-5)
37% Disapprove (+12)

Massachusetts:

66% Approve (-12)
29% Disapprove (+18)

Minnesota:

62% Approve (-2)
32% Disapprove (+11)

Missouri:

51% Approve (-14)
43% Disapprove (+22)

New Mexico:

59% Approve (-6)
34% Disapprove (+12)

New York:

70% Approve (-8)
25% Disapprove (+14)

Oregon:

61% Approve (-7)
32% Disapprove (+14)

Virginia:

54% Approve (-8)
42% Disapprove (+19)

Washington:

64% Approve (-5)
32% Disapprove (+15)

Wisconsin:

60% Approve (-10)
37% Disapprove (+19)
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Keystone Phil
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« Reply #168 on: February 24, 2009, 04:54:29 PM »

Obama should resign. It's clear that the American people have rejected his socialist, possibly Muslim, agenda.

DEMINT/CANTOR 2012

...

So you're being just as idiotic as the people saying he's guaranteed to lose?

We're barely a month into his Presidency, folks. It's not time for anyone to get cocky.
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #169 on: February 24, 2009, 05:54:02 PM »

Obama should resign. It's clear that the American people have rejected his socialist, possibly Muslim, agenda.

DEMINT/CANTOR 2012

...

So you're being just as idiotic as the people saying he's guaranteed to lose?

We're barely a month into his Presidency, folks. It's not time for anyone to get cocky.

When did I say he was guaranteed to win? I was just making fun of the hacks who think Obama's approvals are collapsing or that the stimulus/his economic policies are unpopular.
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Keystone Phil
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« Reply #170 on: February 24, 2009, 08:32:31 PM »


When did I say he was guaranteed to win? I was just making fun of the hacks who think Obama's approvals are collapsing or that the stimulus/his economic policies are unpopular.

Well, maybe you haven't said it out right but you've implied it and haven't once corrected these ridiculous maps that have him practically sweeping the nation.
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #171 on: February 24, 2009, 08:37:16 PM »


When did I say he was guaranteed to win? I was just making fun of the hacks who think Obama's approvals are collapsing or that the stimulus/his economic policies are unpopular.

Well, maybe you haven't said it out right but you've implied it and haven't once corrected these ridiculous maps that have him practically sweeping the nation.

Anything is possible, as you so like to say. A Reagan/Nixon/LBJ-re-election-esque victory is a distinct possibility.
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Eraserhead
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« Reply #172 on: February 24, 2009, 08:39:32 PM »

It looks like Alabama is starting to remember that it's Alabama.
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Keystone Phil
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« Reply #173 on: February 24, 2009, 08:39:45 PM »


When did I say he was guaranteed to win? I was just making fun of the hacks who think Obama's approvals are collapsing or that the stimulus/his economic policies are unpopular.

Well, maybe you haven't said it out right but you've implied it and haven't once corrected these ridiculous maps that have him practically sweeping the nation.

Anything is possible, as you so like to say. A Reagan/Nixon/LBJ-re-election-esque victory is a distinct possibility.

Sure it is but at the same time you say that, you laugh off the possibility of a Republican landslide. Consistency problem? Absolutely.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #174 on: February 26, 2009, 01:53:56 PM »

For the first time in Rasmussen's Daily Tracking there are no "Undecideds" today:

60% Approve
40% Disapprove

BTW, Gallup:

65% Approve
21% Disapprove
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