The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread (user search)
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  The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread (search mode)
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Author Topic: The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread  (Read 1201197 times)
"'Oeps!' De blunders van Rick Perry Indicted"
DarthNader
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« on: July 17, 2011, 10:35:43 PM »

Has there ever been a nominee as strongly favored and well-positioned as Hillary who didn't win the nomination?  If you want to pretend Obama's political skill is comparable to that of Ford (who never won a race bigger than a congressional district) knock yourself out.

Excluding incumbents who dropped out (Truman, LBJ) or candidates who self-destructed (Hart), Muskie comes to mind. And nobody he ran against (certainly not McGovern) had anywhere near the charisma of Obama or even Edwards. Kennedy also started as a near-shoo-in against Carter, though primarying an incumbent is always tricky.

Unless they're under siege in some dramatic way, I think most presidents start off with the presumption that they are political savants; it's like the early SNL joke about Ford, "If He's So Dumb, How Come He's President?" The Bush I team were considered Machivellian geniuses as late as the Clarence Thomas hearings in Oct. '91. This William Safire column from June '80 notes the "conventional wisdom" that Carter is "an inept president but a great political campaigner."

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"'Oeps!' De blunders van Rick Perry Indicted"
DarthNader
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***
Posts: 483


« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2011, 02:57:46 AM »
« Edited: July 18, 2011, 03:02:45 AM by DarthNader »

There are three incumbents on that list who lost re-election.  Safire's hyperbole notwithstanding, none were remotely close to Obama in political talent.  Two of the presidents lost to opponents who were way more talented campaigners, the other had never won a race bigger than a CD.  And none were dealing with a conspicuously obstructionist congress.  This doesn't mean he can't lose or his approval rating isn't a factor.  But it does mean we should hesitate to extrapolate x is the approval rating cut-off from that very limited data from dissimilar circumstances.

Is Obama more of a political talent than Ford, Carter or Bush 1? Yeah, almost certainly (not that this is a high bar to clear). But again, at the start of the '92 election, Bush was not thought of as a political no-talent but as a guy who decimated Dukakis after trailing by 17 points. Carter was perceived as an ex-peanut farmer who became president kinda miraculously after serving a single gubernatorial term. "Safire's hyperbole" was not his own view, but a recitation of the CW about Carter - this Guardian postmortem on the campaign describes "electioneering" as the "one skill" Carter "was reputed to have." Basically, anyone talented enough to get elected president is going to be thought of as a highly talented campaigner. Obama's really not unique in that regard.

In point of fact, Ford and Bush did have hostile opposition congresses, which they tried to run against, Truman-style, before moving on to other strategies (check their convention acceptance speeches).
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"'Oeps!' De blunders van Rick Perry Indicted"
DarthNader
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 483


« Reply #2 on: August 19, 2011, 11:58:56 PM »

GHWB likely would have won if not for Perot

Can't believe anyone still believes this.
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"'Oeps!' De blunders van Rick Perry Indicted"
DarthNader
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 483


« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2011, 12:19:00 PM »


Pro-Gaddafi sample working its way through the system.
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"'Oeps!' De blunders van Rick Perry Indicted"
DarthNader
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 483


« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2011, 02:04:27 PM »

And, the quake knocks the top story of Obama's numbers.

Why would Obama's low going from 39% to 38% be a top story?
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"'Oeps!' De blunders van Rick Perry Indicted"
DarthNader
Jr. Member
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Posts: 483


« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2011, 01:07:36 PM »

I have been looking at the 18 month/12 month period prior to the election. 

The one with the lowest low number to win reelection was Clinton in 1996; he had 42% approval in January 1996.

It should be noted that this was a major outlier from Gallup; network polls from roughly the same period showed Clinton at 50% and 53% (scroll down), though it declined into the high forties later in the month (second gov't shutdown?).
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"'Oeps!' De blunders van Rick Perry Indicted"
DarthNader
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 483


« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2011, 01:27:57 PM »

That 39% for Ford could have been an outllier as well.

Possibly; I know that Carter actually went below 20% in some polls (as did Bush in '08), but Gallup doesn't seem to reflect that.
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"'Oeps!' De blunders van Rick Perry Indicted"
DarthNader
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 483


« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2011, 03:08:59 PM »

The strongly disapprove vs. strongly approve business is irrelevant, unless one of the two somehow exceeds 50%.  Everyone gets one vote.  It doesn't matter how passionate that vote is.

Less passionate voters are less likely to bother voting.
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"'Oeps!' De blunders van Rick Perry Indicted"
DarthNader
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 483


« Reply #8 on: November 22, 2011, 03:14:13 PM »

Today:

Gallup - 43/50
Rasmussen - 45/52
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