The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[SenatorShadowLands]

I think it goes without saying that Obama's approvals are more pertinent to 2010 than 2012. If he tanks badly enough (as most polls are suggesting) then the GOP retaking the House and moving to within throwing distance of control of the Senate (especially with the 2012 Senate Geography, the only GOP member that can be considered vulnerable is Ensign and only becuase of his scandal or he would have been safe too). I realize that info has all been posted and hashed over repeatedly but some here seem to need a reminder that these numbers mean more to the midterms than the Presidential election.

[SenatorShadowLands]

Democratic Hawk is not going to blame Obama or his policies for his low rating.

And why should I? I'm a pragmatic moderate, not some rightwing dogmatoid

You post an entire speech babbling about the evils of Reactionary Republican "wealthfare" attacking the GOP and nation en masse for their reactions to Obama's doing next to nothing since taking office and we are really supposed to believe you are a moderate? And do you really believe Obama stands for your "workfare" and not leftist welfare? You are delusional if that is the case.

[SenatorShadowLands]

At least Zogby can follow a trend, CBS just seems to be like "Hey everything's wonderful, Obama hasn't moved in months, everyone loves him, and there's just a small number of crazy people who could possibly oppose his catastrophic policies."

[SenatorShadowLands]

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.

[SenatorShadowLands]

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.

Jan Brewer was NOT elected to be Governor of Arizona.  She was elected to be Sec of State and took over the Governor's mansion when Democrat Janet Naplitano (who was first elected in the strong GOP year of 2002) resigned to take the Sec of  Homeland Security position within the Obama admin.

I'm not suggesting Arizona will flip, though no more home state advantage + continued GOP problems with the growing Hispanic vote could make it much more competitive than it was.

And within 10 years the GOP will be relegated to 5 white men and the huge mass of minorities and "age wave" voters will ensure that a Liberal Democrat at last wins the final GOP House seat in Utah wiping out the GOP forever. Yawn. And I didn't seriously think I'd have to reitirate the fact that Brewer hasn't been elected Governor yet but is the pack of nobodies the Dems are putting up against her very likely to defeat her or whoever the GOP nominates?

[SenatorShadowLands]

Quote foulup here, sorry about that. This reply is for pbrower.

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.


[/quote]

Arkansas has a nasty habit of voting Democrat at the state level "cuz my daddy did and his daddy did etc etc etc" it has nothing to do with pure ideology.

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.

Obama won Virginia and North Carolina and Iowa and Indiana despite being a liberal Northern Democrat what does that have to do with Gerald Ford winning Michigan while Carter managed to win other states that weren't part of his background?

[SenatorShadowLands]

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.  

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???

[SenatorShadowLands]

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???

 

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.


[/quote]

If you throw enough time and effort into a state, especially when its starting to become competitive then yeah you're going to do well there. I've got no problem with saying that. I'm still trying to establish the connection between all of that and Arizona. If Obama spends a ton of time and money there does he have a shot? Yes, it's not Alabama but that's true  eveywhere else as well. If you make many appearnaces and spend a lot of money trying to win a state you have a better chance of doing so. That's common sense not some shocking political trend that will make Arizona vote Dem in 2012.

[SenatorShadowLands]

Don't think anyone caught these yet:

FDU Public Mind New Jersey:
Approve: 56
Disapprove: 36

http://publicmind.fdu.edu/healthhelps/release.pdf

Chicago Tribune/ WGN Illinois Political Survey
Approve: 59
Disapprove: 33

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-obama-poll04sep04,0,2367412.story