Bill Sammon, in examining data from the Gallup Poll earlier this week, reported this:
President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term. Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and even Richard Nixon all had higher approval ratings 10-and-a-half months into their presidencies. Obama’s immediate predecessor, President George W. Bush, had an approval rating of 86 percent, or 39 points higher than Obama at this stage. Bush’s support came shortly after he launched the war in Afghanistan in response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
President Obama’s slide has indeed been steep, steady, and historic. There are a dozen or so political data points that all point in the same direction. His act has grown tired and stale in an astonishingly short period of time. In November 2008, after Obama’s election, a Contentions blogger wrote this:
A year from now, it won’t be enough to blame the problems on others. He and other Democrats ran and won on the promise that they would turn things around, and do so quickly. Those promises can’t be reeled back. Obama in particular has set a very high bar. … The capacity to engineer constructive change may be less than Obama thought, and he will find the world will not be as malleable as hot wax. Things don’t have to be perfect, but there needs to be a sense that the trajectory is improving and that his proposals are working. If Barack Obama governs as President as he voted as a state senator and a U.S. Senator–which is to say, from the left–then today’s high hopes will come crashing down around him. … For understandable reasons, many people are being swept up in this remarkable American moment. But reality will intrude soon enough, and Barack Obama will face the same standards that every other President has faced. Incantations of “hope” and “change” can work in a campaign. They are virtually useless when it comes to governing. Barack Obama is about to enter the crucible. We’ll see how he performs.
As the president approaches the end of his first year in office, the verdict of the public is clear: Barack Obama has performed poorly. He has squandered the enormous goodwill he had. His actions have in many instances damaged his country, his presidency, and his party. And the challenges ahead will only grow. The question is: will he?
It is true enough that political leaders can expend their political capital on behalf of admirable causes. But it is also true that political leaders can expend it on behalf of unwise and unworthy causes. With the important exception of his decision on Afghanistan, what President Obama has done is, I believe, the latter. His presidency, still less than a year old, is far from broken. But it has absorbed serious blows. And that memorable November 4 evening in Grant Park — when Obama seemed on top of the world, his party fully in command, liberalism on the rise, his supporters intoxicated by the margin of his victory — now seems like a lifetime ago. Reality has indeed intruded. His perceived strengths are now seen as weaknesses. Many of his supporters are dispirited. In the aftermath of the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, his party’s skittishness has turned to deep concern. The GOP is energized and on the comeback trail. And Barack Obama, a man of almost limitless self-regard, has been humbled. He may not admit it, and he may not even know it. But it has been, in fact, a humbling year. The sooner the president understands that and understands why this moment has come to pass, the better it will be for him, and for us.