The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread (user search)
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« on: June 29, 2009, 11:47:44 PM »

We need to stop acting like the states that haven't voted Republican ince the 1980s provide some sort of structural advantage to Obama. The Democrats have won those states because Republican national margins have been nonexistent to narrow.

Actuallly no for instance in 1976 Ford won California inspite losing the Nation wide vote by 2%. In 1988 Bush Sr won CA by 3.5% although he won nationwide by 8. In 2004 Bush won by 2.5% and lost CA by 10%. In 2008 McCain lost by 7% and lost CA by 24%. The trend has clearly been away from us since the 80's. CA votes Dem by 17 points more then the National Average. Meaning in 2012. A Republican would have to win 58% of the vote and still could just narrowly lose it the same way Bush narrowly lost NY in 1988.

1976 R+3
1984 D+1
1988 D+4.5%
2004 D+12.5%
2008 D+17
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2009, 11:52:11 PM »

Why is Hawaii mentioned?

Hawaii is not Obama's home state.

He was born there.


Biden was born in Pennsylvania, yet Pennsylvania was not mentioned as one of the home states.

Not to mention that a politician's place of birth is pretty much irrelevant. Because apparently Connecticut was a home state of Bush II, but he never won there.

Of course it depends on the candidates appeal there which Bush had none. Biden's theme appealed to Pennsylvanias but its impossible to know how much of that 10 point margin is his doing.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2009, 12:20:38 AM »

Obama comes down to earth a bit in Minnesota:






Lol at Nevada and Florida. Whatheck is going on?

Housing bust hitting a swing state puts states to Obama by wider margins then he should have won them, especially NV. Housing continues to bust and guess what Obama hasn't solved the problem yet. Even if condiditions stay the same Obama's approvals will drop in the hardest hit areas first and it will show up in the swing states first like NV and FL. The only way the trends top is for things to improve and we are far away from that at this point.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2009, 09:00:24 PM »

Arkansas - Wilson Research Strategies (R)Sad

42% Approve
54% Disapprove

(Mike Beebe)

78% Approve
15% Disapprove

(Blanche Lincoln)

49% Approve
40% Disapprove

The poll was commissioned by Talk Business Quarterly, a magazine headed by Stephens Media columnist Roby Brock. Washington-based Wilson Research Strategies (R) surveyed 600 likely Arkansas voters by phone July 13-15.

http://arkansasnews.com/2009/08/12/poll-beebe-has-78-percen
t-approval-rating-lincoln-49-percent/

Does any governer have a higher approval than Beebe?

Hunstman had 86% a few days ago.

Hoeven was in the ballpark but I think it was an internal.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2009, 08:48:15 PM »

I trust the embracement of enlightened Democratic pragmatism taken by VA, NC, FL and NV, in 2008, wasn't a temporary blip. Still, they are holding Obama to a higher standard, at this point, than they ever did Bush, which can only bode well for good government

Bush abused the ideological nature of America, Obama cannot do that

Enlightened Democratic pragmatism. I think NC has had enough of that BS after the Mike Easley Administration, Meg Scott Phipps, State House Speaker Jim Black, and State Rep. Tom Wright.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #5 on: December 22, 2009, 11:28:23 PM »

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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2010, 05:46:43 PM »

In Michigan Obama Approval Rating
55% Disapprove
44% Approve

Do you have a source?

Also, welcome to the forum Smiley

With numbers like that, it's probably a Rasmussen, Zogby or something.  I just have a hard time believing -11 in Michigan...

EPIC-MRI - a local Michigan poling company out of Lansing - I find them to be pretty accurate for election polling.  Not sure about approval rating polls though.

Ah, alright, thanks for the reference.  I've personally never heard of that polling agency.

They only do Michigan polls, but they're the main Michigan polling company (at least non-partisan company, that is).

I remember them from both 2006 and the 2008 Republican primaries.

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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2010, 06:32:14 PM »

In Michigan Obama Approval Rating
55% Disapprove
44% Approve

Do you have a source?

Also, welcome to the forum Smiley

With numbers like that, it's probably a Rasmussen, Zogby or something.  I just have a hard time believing -11 in Michigan...

EPIC-MRI - a local Michigan poling company out of Lansing - I find them to be pretty accurate for election polling.  Not sure about approval rating polls though.

Ah, alright, thanks for the reference.  I've personally never heard of that polling agency.

They only do Michigan polls, but they're the main Michigan polling company (at least non-partisan company, that is).

I remember them from both 2006 and the 2008 Republican primaries.



2006 primary for what?

2006 midterms and the 2008 Republican Primaries.


That better?
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2010, 12:54:48 PM »
« Edited: January 10, 2010, 01:03:20 PM by Senator North Carolina Yankee, PPT »

Don't know about party registratio but the final exit polling of some the late polls in 2008 like SurveyUSA had McCain winning +40% of OK Dems.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #9 on: June 17, 2010, 09:01:25 PM »

I don't know what to make of this poll.  Do Republicans believe that Democrats in Congress  well represent Democratic voters (if not Republican conservatives) and Democrats believe that Republicans in Congress represent  republican voters (if also not Democrats) badly?



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Whatever, Republicans in Congress seem to have more problems with credibility.

ROTFLOL!!!

I can explain that with relative ease.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2011, 05:02:21 PM »

But who cares what an adult who is not a registered voter thinks anyway?  They are irrelevant to the political process.

New voters may swing heavily toward President Obama as in 2008, and old voters might go into hibernation, at least in the Presidential election.

Remember:

Some of the people who will be voting in the 2012 election are now barely 16 years old. Some have just achieved citizenship.


Little bit of wishful thinking, no? Obama will not have the same magic as he did in 2008. A lot of people - youth included - have become so disillusioned with him. In fact, there's more of a chance the youth will stay home, and the elders will seek to vote him out of office.

I have no cause to believe  that voters over 50 will vote more for than against President Obama. Voters under 50? Different story.

Why do you believe that the electorate will behave as it did in 2010?  The Hard Right has taken over the House, and it is going to return to the same Dubya-era politics that eventually went stale. The right-wing special interests from the gun lobby to the financial gougers own the House and will effectively govern through lobbyists. Lobbyists will not themselves vote, but they will certainly give guidance to Hard Right Republicans. Basically the guidance will be "Vote this way or we will find someone to defeat you in the primary". 

Suppose that in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Representative Giffords that the President offers some weapons-control reforms... perhaps a restoration of the ban on assault rifles and a new ban on large magazines as well as stricter regulation on who can buy guns and ammo -- so that someone adjudicated mentally ill or rejected by the Armed Forces for mental instability or insufficiency, someone dishonorably discharged, someone on the terrorist watch list, or an illegal alien will be arrested  for simply trying to buy guns or ammo. The gun lobby will be furious!


President Obama, should he succeed in getting the desired legislation passed,  will be recognized as a political hero. Should the House stop him then it will generally be seen as the fault of the GOP  and he gets to campaign on a promise of sensible gun control in 2012. Heads I win -- tails you lose. Sometimes that is the way that things work.

The economy? "No double dip" is evidence of sound management of whatever role the President has  in the economy. Sure, there can't be another corrupt boom for a while, but the hits that have been taken are all that can be taken.

Wishful thinking? The wishful thinking on my part is that historical precedent holds for this President.  I can't predict the future as certainly as perhaps an astrologer might pretend to. But I can predict that a Congress of Hard Right stooges of Corporate America and the Religious Right will offend younger voters anew.     




Most voters do not view the economy and politics like that. Americans will expect a return to or be on the road to what they think is "normal" ie 5% unemployment and expect the President to deliver it whether he can or can't in reality (thank FDR). If that hasn't been achieved they will turn on whoever it is in office.

This is not a case of having you cake and eating it too, "the hits have been taken and so there will be no more damage from them". That is not how the economy is treated. Results beyond just averting a worse crisis (which I will point out is a difficult arguement to make because people beleive what they feel and since they didn't feel a worse case scenario they won't grasp it) will be demanded as long as this "new normal" lasts. In other words, "Are you better off now then you were four years ago" or "I can do better at 'restoring' the economy then he can..." are very potent tools as long as Unemployment is stuck above 9%.

Most real people that you talk to, don't consider the recession over and they don't view the economy in terms of contraction and expansion but in terms of whether the economy is good or is bad and from the beginning of the contraction till we reach pre-Recession employement levels, is considered bad. So Obama will not be trumpeting the current state of affairs as an achievement worthy of his reelection. Instead his arguement will have to be this is just a bump in the road and that his policies and his administration will restore the economy if reelected. Successfully convincing people of that is his only option. If he doesn't then the Republicans will be able to make the case and it will be very convincing that Obama beleives this is an acceptable "new normal" and that the only way to move beyond it is to elect someone committed to restoring the economy to full health. Actual reality of the polices will matter less because in the people's mind Obama's policies haven't delivered results and thus it is time to try something new.

Finally, most would gladly go back to 2005 if only it didn't mean having to go through 2007 to 2010. People prefer booming economies and don't view them as corrupt. It is reasonable to say that the economic expansion (boom just sounds so juvenile these days, I think. Overuse maybe) from 2002 to 2007 was unstable and unsustainable, it most certainly wasn't corrupt. An expansion is merely a growth in the number and value of the transactions that take place (measured with GDP). Hardly corrupt in and off itself. Corruption does happen, but I think the incentive for fraud and criminal behavior is present in good and bad times. One would have to be very cynical to say that all new economic activity and all economic activity that increased in value in a period of years is corrupt.

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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #11 on: February 04, 2011, 06:44:21 PM »

He has handled Egypt pretty well up to now, so I don't see why his numbers would slide due to it. I guess Americans just like interventionist foreign policy. Roll Eyes

It's one of those situations of a no win situation for any President.


Also, Obama has a penchant for losing ground whenever a foreign crisis erupts going back to the Georgia invasion by Russia.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #12 on: February 04, 2011, 07:13:02 PM »

He has handled Egypt pretty well up to now, so I don't see why his numbers would slide due to it. I guess Americans just like interventionist foreign policy. Roll Eyes

It's one of those situations of a no win situation for any President.


Also, Obama has a penchant for losing ground whenever a foreign crisis erupts going back to the Georgia invasion by Russia.

The Georgia invasion was during the Bush administration. (mid-2008)

Also, Obama's handling of Egypt has been beyond incompetent.  That being said, if this is a change in approval of Obama, it happened when the major event was Mubarek/Army pushback and Obama's open call for regime change in Egypt.  Not that this is any proof of any change, of course.  Got to wait a couple of weeks.

Really, No sh**t.  Notice I said "lose ground". I didn't say what he lost ground in. Roll Eyes

Actually there may be a trend of this going back to Musharaff's ouster in Pakistan in around the end of 2007/early 2008.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #13 on: February 06, 2011, 05:50:14 PM »

Simultaneous bad samples in two different polling companies. Unusally, but I guess anything is possible. Wink
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #14 on: April 18, 2011, 05:41:51 PM »

lol, Perdue.

How nice of her to pull herself away from the horse races in KY long enough to tour some of the damage from the Tornadoes and to veto an extension of unemployment benefits.

Gotta love those optics. Tongue I wonder if Obama will shove her into a broom closet during the convention so as to not cause him any damage.

Hispanic % is kind of low among other things in this poll.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #15 on: May 09, 2011, 03:00:04 PM »

Pbrower, no one in America even knows or cares about the Ryan budget. Please get out of your political bubble for once and look at things objectively.

Maybe not in the Presidential race. For Congressional races -- maybe. Democratic challengers are going to run against it, and in many districts, Republicans are going to try to run from it. ordinarily a politician runs on his record and wins or runs from his record and loses.

In the Presidential election, we all know what event has more immediate influence. The WaPo poll after May 1, 2011 suggests that President Obama would win Virginia by something close to a 57-40 margin (and that is charitable to Republicans). Virginia is close to the national average in voting.

Guess which President was last to win 57% of the popular vote as an incumbent! Reagan won 59%, Nixon 60%, and LBJ 61%.

Dwight Eisenhower, 1956.  1956 was not a pretty year for Democrats. I cannot predict how a 57-43 split of the popular vote would manifest itself in electoral votes, so I can't give a map of such an event. 55-45 likely solidifies Indiana and North Carolina and flips at the least the following states from 2008:

Arizona
Georgia
Missouri
Montana

Ike won 457 electoral votes in 1956 and would have probably won both Alaska and Hawaii if those two states had been voting. Maybe even DC because the Democrats that year had the segregationist vote tied up.
  

1956 was a pretty good year for Democrats downballot.

Definately, 1956 was in no way an embrace of the GOP at all. On wikipedia (take it for what its worth) its says that it was primarily a vote for the status quo. They kept the Dems in control of the House and the Senate (which they had gained in 1954) while reelecting Ike in a landslide.

Ike's performance seems to me to be the last hurrah of the ancient Civil War Political map with a lot of his voters coming from legacy voting by people who really were Democrats and voted such on the rest of the ballot.
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« Reply #16 on: June 07, 2011, 02:24:13 AM »

CBS certainly has been rather pessimistic in regards to the economy starting Friday. If this was true across most of the networks, that may be the reason for the more negative polling (ABC, and PPP). Perhaps Gallup is just late in picking this up.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #17 on: August 03, 2011, 04:48:54 PM »

The only problem with that strategy is that whoever the GOP nominee is, will be attacking Obama's record, particulary on the economy. Truman didn't have that occuring in 1948, as the economy had stabilized somewhat from the post-war volatility seen in 1946, which had helped produce the GOP landslide that year. Also, Dewey ran a very week campaign with little substance, and virtually no criticism of Truman at all.

Another mark against that type of campaign is that it was factually inaccurate. One could hardly call the Congress that passed the Marshall plan as "Do-Nothing". In the age of Internet, such a false narrative, even if picked up by the mainstream media, has less impact then it did when newspapers ruled the day almost unchallenged.
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« Reply #18 on: August 04, 2011, 03:32:04 PM »

The only problem with that strategy is that whoever the GOP nominee is, will be attacking Obama's record, particulary on the economy. Truman didn't have that occuring in 1948, as the economy had stabilized somewhat from the post-war volatility seen in 1946, which had helped produce the GOP landslide that year. Also, Dewey ran a very week campaign with little substance, and virtually no criticism of Truman at all.


1. My suggestion is only that. The nominee could completely change the narrative.

2. For obvious reasons, the President will not run against the Senate which ordinarily originates few bills.

3. The list of achievements by the 111th Congress overwhelms what the 112th Congress has achieved or is likely to achieve. Indeed even the lame-duck session is more impressive than what has since transpired.

4. I expect the Republicans to offer economic 'reforms' likely to transfer more income and wealth to the super-rich with only vague promises of "growth" at the expense of lower wages, a ravaged environment, lax safety standards on the job, huge cuts in social programs, perhaps replacement of the income tax with a national sales tax. These might not be popular.

5. Republicans will have culpability for any 'double dip' in this Depression for having ensured that the only stimulus possible is tax cuts for the super-rich.

6. Congress is extremely unpopular now. It is hard to see how an approval rating of 14% can be redeemed short of a complete renunciation of what it has done so far. People will be ready for a re-make of Congress, and a return to what Americans knew with the 111th will look wonderful by contrast. 
 
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Harry Truman sold the Marshall Plan as an issue of national security -- to stop Communist subversion of Europe. At least that Congress did something. This one has achieved only a budget deal that ensures a continuing Depression that serves only to enhance the power of the Ruling Elite of private industry over the rest of us.

The Tea Party clique is shrill and extreme. Extremists can win one election fair-and square; to win the next one in a 'moderate' bailiwick the extremists must either pull the public into its radicalism (which hasn't happened) or either rig or cancel the next election and subsequent ones.   

The Republicans are more likely to lose their majority in the House than the Democrats are likely to hold onto the Senate. Until I see polls on the approval of the Presidency over the next few days I will suspend my prediction on the President winning or losing. (My map will remain active for now but even I now take it with a piece of salt the size of one of the monoliths at Stonehenge).  Tea Party extremists won a huge number of seats in the House in 2010 -- some in districts that now lean D or are nearly neutral. I predict that Representatives who far better serve out-of-district plutocrats than their own constituents will be one-term Representatives. Constituents of those districts (I am but one in such a district) will decide who better serves Texas oil barons and Wall Street profiteers than people in their districts.

1946 was a year following the long Crisis Era that contained the Great Depression and World War II which included one of the most dangerous times first for the survival of responsible government (America could have gone sharply Left [Marxism] or Right [KKK/fascism/military dictatorship]) due to domestic distress and the chaos that such can bring and then the danger of military victories by gangster regimes intent on conquering America or at least rendering it prostrate. We are entering times little less dangerous. Economic distress will not go away soon -- but the Hard Right can, if fully in charge, ensure that America's plutocrats make no sacrifices while others suffer.

In 1946, price controls and rationing  intended to ensure that people weren't priced out of the bare necessities expired. A free market is impossible in a major war; unleashing the market to permit greater productivity to meet demand was suddenly a good idea. In 1946 the economic problem was best described as too little civilian production to meet civilian demand. In 2011 such does not describe reality. We do not have a fault of inadequate productivity; we have inadequate demand to meet our productive capacity. Without people showing the willingness or ability to buy what can be produced, even that productive capacity will surely go obsolete or be scrapped. I don't know what you think of the generational cycle of about 75 to 80 years... but this year is analogous to something between 1931 and 1937. 2006 was a good political analogue to 1930, and 2007 was a good economic analogue to 1929. Go figure.

This last paragraph is misleading. It insinuates that I made some error of analysis regarding the 1946 elections. Something which I only mentioned in passing to respond to a comparison you had made, that of 1948 to 2012. To respond back, you changed the comparison from one of mostly politcal criteria to one of mostly economic criteria. The exact details behind the economic situation are irrelevant as far as the comparison you initially made, which is the one I responded to. Economic conditions adverse to an incubment President produced midterm victories for the GOP in both 1946 and 2010. The only difference is the economic situation which produced the GOP victory in 1946 was largely gone by 1948. The same cannot be said of the economic conditions that produced the 2010 election results. Unlike Truman, President Obama will not be able to escape criticism for the economic conditions, from a far more aggressive GOP candidate, then Dewey. Unless of course Pawlenty is somehow nominated.

The problem with many of the rest of your points is that your personal ideological view of the world is present in them. Most voters don't think in such ways and such surely you can acknowledge the flaws behind many of the predictions.
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« Reply #19 on: August 04, 2011, 05:18:04 PM »

I wasn't talking about the analysis of economic cycles when I said your personal ideology clouded the analysis. I was talking about the other points.

Again, these economic facts regarding different economic circumstances have nothing to do with the original comparison which you established, not me. By the changing the subject, which is what you have basically done, you have ventured as far out of the relevancy of this thread and thus to a topic which is frankly boring me. Only thing interesting about this whole affairs is that by changing the comparison to one of "which economic circumstances best compares to now" from "the success or failure of pursuing a 1948 style reelection strategy", you have succeeded in weakening your initial comparison in an attempt to refute my point. You have just said that the economic situation we have now is entirely different from what the counrty dealt with in the mid 40's. Isn't that what I was saying?

How can Obama run against Austerity when he has embraced it and in the process conceded several critical points along the way to the GOP that would have been crucial for him to stand his ground on, were he to engage in such a strategy? He hasn't been planning to run as Truman in 1948, he has been attempting to be Clinton in 1996, and he has thrown leftist economics under the bus to do it. If he were to backtrack, and suddenly try to claim that deficits don't matter, I think that would cause more problems for him then it would solve.
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« Reply #20 on: August 05, 2011, 06:20:11 PM »

I am positive neither pbrower or JJ's analyses are biased by their political beliefs at all.

I don't know.  I think Obama can win in a good economy.  However, I think we're heading into recession.  We'll know the second one first.

Obviously, Obamacare was not politically popular.

We're can't be entering a new recession, we never left the old one. If we keep getting private sector job growth through 2012, then we'll see a fairly big victory for Barack Obama.

'Obamacare' was not unpopular in the fashion that you appear to be spinning it. A lot of people did not like Obama's healthcare reform because they thought it did not go far enough, and that will not drive them to vote for Mitt Romney, or whoever the GOP candidate will be.

Your definition of a recession is a weird one. Under the standard definition, the recession ended in June 2009. There is no rule that says, "you can't have another recession until you have regained all the lost GDP and jobs". That is not how the cycles of expansion and contraction work.
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« Reply #21 on: August 09, 2011, 04:10:35 PM »

The polling you posted does not adequately back up all the points you are making.

I especially would like to know which of those numbers backs up #5 for both CO and NC. Your number 2s seem switched and both seem to exaggerate the results. Number three is also a conclusion that I don't see a basis for. Four is nothing new. 6 seems presumptive, especially when redistricting isn't even been started in CO and the only people worried about losing seats in NC is the Democrats. Brad Miller is even thinking of running in the fourth against fellow Dem Brad Miller, according to "On The Record", a local political show.
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« Reply #22 on: August 09, 2011, 06:06:14 PM »
« Edited: August 09, 2011, 06:09:26 PM by Senator North Carolina Yankee »

@pbrower
I wasn't talking about the questions in the poll. I was talking about your "points", "interpretations", etc.
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« Reply #23 on: August 26, 2011, 03:41:22 PM »

You would think that Survey USA would get their act together on the West Coast. All their polls for over a year have been useless garbarge in that region.
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« Reply #24 on: October 08, 2011, 10:41:25 PM »

We're almost getting in range when we can say that he'll be a first term president, unless there's a seismic economic recovery within the next year.

Frankly, I think he's done for already. I just don't see how he's going to get his numbers close to 50%, and remain there on a consistent basis. He has 13 months; time is starting to run out. 

The rules are very different for economic hard times that are clearly not the fault of the President, are blamed upon a prior President or on foreigners, and have no obvious cure except what the President proposes. FDR got re-elected in very hard times -- the Great Depression and the Second World War. Three times!

There is no quick return to non-recession times. The GOP is giving America what it considers an offer that it can't refuse but is giving instead an offer that it can't accept. Few people want greater hardships for themselves on behalf of people that they have little cause to trust. The GOP won big in 2010 by sugar-coating a raw deal for the American people. The sugar-coating has washed away.

Wage cuts for oneself and tax cuts for someone else -- essentially the rigid GOP offer -- can't be offered anew with sugar-coating in 2012 with a reasonable chance of acceptance. Now here is the bigger question: must the President become a demagogue to be re-elected? I hope not! Demagogues fare well politically in hard times. It is far easier to cast blame than to offer solutions. We are in no ordinary recession. Doing what got us into this very nasty recession -- the Lesser Depression -- is a non-solution; people just won't respond. There won't be a fresh real-estate boom for about twenty years, and the predatory lending and dishonest underwriting of what have proved bad loans will repel people much as two north poles of magnets repel each other. The GOP solution of doing what got us into the Great Depression is even less attractive except to those who expect new opportunities to get good stuff at distressed prices.   

Keep in mind that in 1940, FDR was losing on the economy and won reelection only because of Europe. We are far closer to a situation of a President "having inherited a situation and failed to successfully resolve it" such as most people thought in 1940, then we are to 1936 and "the President having inherited a bad economy and is struggling to bring us back, but it takes time".

Also, once again your analysis of the political situation in the campaign is extremely slanted because of your personal interpretation of events and ideologies seeping in.

Is the President going to demagogue? He has no other choice, other than to concede the election. His only path to victory is to define his opponent as a nutcase (Cain, Perry, Bachman, or Paul) or a stiff necked businessman who took perverse pleasure in putting working class Americans in the unemployment line (Romney, Cain and Huntsman).

And he has already been engaging in this activity since 2008. He essentially ran on a campaign of "everyone who disagrees with me is part of the problem and have no place in the new page of American history which I am going to create". The only plan to implement such a drastic change in American political dialogue, that he was capable of engaging in, was to remove his opponents from the conversation, somehow. Most likely through demagogery as being, "part of the old politics". Which probably would have worked as long as Obama's approvals stayed over 60% and independents loved him. He had no experience doing grand bargains on a major issue, and he had no real good working relationships with people on capitol hill, even amongst Democrats. It seems Reid and Pelosi thought him as a good way to stop Hillary from coming in and "taking over" what they worked so hard to put together in 2006. But some of their actions seem to indicate a lack of high regard for Obama. Especially now that has done what they feared Hillary would cause, the loss of the majority.
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