Lot’s of people saw Barack Obama as the smartest, coolest dude to assume the office of the Presidency. I’ve had my doubts from the beginning (look at the poor cabinet and administration he put together; he even wanted JUDD GREGG, a reactionary Republican as Commerce Secretary).
It’s obvious that Obama either failed Econ 1 or never took it. Almost two years after taking over from the equally hapless George W. Bush, the economy is still in the dumps with 9.5% unemployment and almost 20% underemployment.
Now, new numbers from a Washington Post/ABC poll show that just four months before the November elections, Obama’s approval rating is at a historic low. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010_Elections/poll-ahead-2010-elections-economy-damages-president-ob
ama/story?id=11146584 His approval rating on the handling of the economy is even worse: 43% approval but 54% disapproval, a slide of 7% in one month. What’s worse, “strong disapprovers” outnumber “strong approvers” by 41% to 20%. Those are landslide losing numbers, the kind of numbers that swept the equally economically limited George H.W. Bush out of office in 1992.
Worse yet, the voters favor a Republican Congress to balance Obama’s increasingly inept looking administration. 70% of independents, yes that’s seventy per cent of independents, want a change in their congressional representative. Since the Democrats dominate the House and Senate, that’s a frightening number. Note too that almost 40% of the respondents in the poll identified themselves as independents.
Clearly the problem is Obama. The number of Americans confident in him making the right decisions has dropped from 61% in his first year in office to 43% now. Approval of his economic job performance has dropped by 15% amongst Democrats in just one month!
Obama has yet to articulate a clear-cut plan to tackle the unemployment situation. He and his party, even with huge majorities in both houses of Congress, have been unable to push through extension of unemployment benefits. Worse yet, he does not appear to recognize that his economic stimulus plan has failed although he was warned when it passed by notable economists (Krugman and Stiglitz) that it was far too little.
In addition, Obama and his administration, rather than fix the economic problem, seem intent on making it worse by cutting social programs that go back to FDR. Obama’s deficit reduction commission is a thinly veiled attack on social security; he has appointed Alice Rivlin and Anne Fudge, amongst others, to this commission. Both are in favor of privatizing social security. Nor does Obama seem to accept core beliefs in Democratic programs that were instilled by FDR in the New Deal. Programs like massive public works projects, or employment schemes like the Civilian Conservation Corps.
His approach on economic issues has been almost Hooverian. He and his advisers, in fact, on numerous occasions have stated the Reagan philosophy that government has its limits in dealing with economic problems. His books show him revering Reagan, not FDR.
Any wonder, then, that the Obama administration has lavished trillions on Wall St., insurance companies, and the military-industrial complex. Defense spending is up 8% over that of George W. Bush’s. The administration has seemed to concede the DOD to the Republicans as Obama has failed, after 19 months in office, to appoint a Democrat to the most important job in the administration: Defense Secretary.
Inept positions, poor administration, and limited ideas are no way to go through life.
It is probably too late for Obama to make the kind of changes necessary to alter the economy before November: nor is he the kind of decisive leader who would even think of doing this. Government by band aids is no solution when the patient is on life support.
Robert Gibbs this past Sunday seemed to recognize that the administration’s own polling numbers substantiate the new ABC poll. Thus, he talked of Democratic losses in November, likely even losing the House. What a far cry this is from two years ago, and Obama has no one to blame but himself and all of his broken promises. Not smart on the economy, not smart in politics.
Once the House turns Republican, look for it to begin endless investigations of Obama and his administration. The administration’s ties to BP (all that cash for waiver of environmental impact statements) and its ties to Goldman Sachs look likely places to begin. In a sense, it does appear that Obama has brought Blago’s “pay to play” schemes to Washington.
The ABC/Washington Post numbers are ominous but not surprising given the broken promises, the ineptness in governing (see the oil disaster and the economic catastrophe) and the timidity and meekness on behalf of Obama himself. Come November, the voters will speak, and it will not be nice for this administration. Note too that this all happened in 1994 when Rahm was in a similar position. Rahm must go and Obama has to start fighting for average Americans or he too will be gone in 2012, hopefully primaried by a progressive Democrat.