You may have noted over the years that I very rarely link to or discuss polls about issues or job approval numbers or even elections. In the presidential race, I mainly linked to Nate Silver’s analysis of polls rather than to any individual polling outfit. Part of the reason I am not prone to discussing polls is that I don’t trust them. And part of it is that they are often meaningless. Do I believe Rasmussen when they issue a poll on gay marriage or reproductive rights? No. Do I care what the April polls say about a November election? Not really.
One poll I do pay attention to is congressional approval, but that is because I am waiting for the day that the House Republicans actually score lower than gonorrhea. It won’t be long now. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll out today shows that the president has succeeded in winning over public opinion on the budget and the debt ceiling. It also shows that people hate Congress, and the Republicans in particular. It even shows a growing group of conservative Republicans who think that the party leaders are not doing enough to strike compromises with Obama.
The GOP congressional leadership also takes flak for a perceived unwillingness to work with Obama on important issues: 67 percent of all Americans see them as doing “too little” to compromise with the president. Far fewer, 48 percent, say so about Obama’s willingness to compromise with the GOP.
The percentage of Americans seeing the Republican leadership as overly intransigent is up 13 percentage points since December 2010, just after the GOP reclaimed control of the House of Representatives. The biggest increases since that time have been among Republicans and conservatives, with roughly 20-point jumps in blaming their party’s leaders for not doing enough to strike deals with the president. Half of all Republicans say the GOP leadership is not doing enough to compromise.
Republicans in the poll have also led the revival in Obama’s “strong leader” number. Overall, 61 percent see the president as a strong leader, up from 51 percent a year ago. Since then, there has been a 17-point increase among Republicans, from 18 to 35 percent.
Obama’s approval rating (55%) is three points higher than Dubya’s and 5% lower than Clinton’s were on the eve of their second inaugurations. His biggest problem is the damage right-wing media have done to his reputation with the GOP base:
Obama continues to face record levels of partisan opposition. He has the lowest approval rating from the other side — just 17 percent of Republicans approve of the way he is doing his job — than any president entering his second term in the past half century, according to Post-ABC and Gallup polls.
Sadly, when I look at right-wing media, I think 17% is pretty good.
