For the first time, a CNN poll has found that a majority of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s job performance. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday, 51 percent of respondents disapprove of Obama’s job performance and 46 percent approve of it. … The new poll was conducted before the House on Sunday narrowly approved the Obama administration’s signature domestic policy proposal: health care reform. … In fact, health care was the policy area that drew the second highest negative rating, with 58 percent registering disapproval. The highest negative rating was 62 percent for his handling of the federal deficit.
The solution to this, the Obami claim, is for Obama to barnstorm the country and talk about ObamaCare. One suspects the Republicans would be delighted. Each day he travels to this or that community, Tea Party protesters gain new adherents, GOP candidates get more ammunition for November, and even the mainstream media are forced to carry the Republican vows to repeal ObamaCare and the reasons for it. Certainly there will be some rallying of the base, but at what cost — more lost independent voters and an increase in the determination of conservatives to sweep out of office those who voted for this?
Obama and Pelosi muscled through a vote using a grab bag of accounting tricks and legal subterfuges because Obama never made the case to the American people on the merits of his legislation. This shows he is a practiced Chicago pol but not very skilled at persuasion. He now wants to persuade Americans after the fact that what he rammed home was good for them. His track record in moving public opinion his way isn’t good. And if anything, the opposition has become more focused and adept at explaining the massive flaws in the bill. (It helps to have a Paul Ryan on your side.) So the president wants to campaign now for his grossly unpopular bill? Republicans’ response: Let him try.
