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Obama has become Mr. Unpopular
This shift in perception - from
Obama as political savior to Obama as creature of Washington - can be
seen elsewhere.
In January '09, his Gallup approval rating stood at 68%, a high for a
newly elected leader not seen since JFK in 1961.
Today Obama's job approval has been hovering in the mid-40s, which
means that at least 1 in 4 Americans has changed
his or her mind. The plunge has been particularly dramatic among
independents, whites and those under age 30.
With midterm elections just nine
weeks off, instead of the generational transformation some Democrats
predicted
after 2008, the President's party teeters on the brink of a broad
setback in November, including the possible loss of
both houses of Congress. By a 10-point margin, people say they will
vote for Republicans over Democrats in Congress,
the largest such gap ever recorded by Gallup.
A sense of disappointment,
bordering on betrayal, has been growing across the country, especially
in moderate states like
Indiana, where people now openly say they didn't quite understand the
President they voted for in 2008. The fear most
often expressed is that Obama is taking the country somewhere they
don't want to go. "We bought what he said. He offered
a lot of hope," says Fred Ferlic, an Obama voter who has since soured
on his choice. Ferlic talks about the messy compromises
in health care reform, his sense of an inhospitable business climate
and the growth of government spending under Obama.
"He's trying to Europeanize us, and the Europeans are going the other
way," continues Ferlic, a former Democratic
campaign donor who plans to vote Republican this year. "The entire
American spirit is being broken."
So, even if YOU think Obama's doing
a great job, voters disagree.
Our house has been on fire for
almost 15 months, and Obama seems not to notice.
Will losing the House and the Senate be enough to get Obama to notice?
Are things so bad that voters will
give power back to the same Republicans
who robbed them of their jobs, their home and their life savings?