Today’s Rasmussen poll shows President Obama with a “presidential index” of Minus 25 — the gap between the 19 percent who “strongly approve” and the 44 percent who “strongly disapprove.” Obama’s total approval of 42 percent trails his overall disapproval of 57 percent by 15 points.
The Boker tov, Boulder graph dramatically illustrates the significance of these figures: most of Obama’s total approval is soft, while nearly 80 percent of Obama’s total disapproval is hard; and his 42 percent total approval is not only anemic, but two points below the 44 percent who strongly disapprove. In other words, it is not simply Obama’s negative numbers that are noteworthy, but the sheer intensity of the opposition.
Day-to-day poll results fluctuate, so let’s look at the monthly averages for the last three months. For June, Obama’s “strongly approve” was at 23 percent–at that point matching the lowest monthly figure since he took office. For July, the figure was up one point at 24 percent. With today’s results, Obama’s average for August is 21 percent–a new low.
Obama is going to try to turn the tide with another speech, proposing more government action to be financed with money the government does not have. What he cannot fix, however, is the continued overhang on the economy of ObamaCare, with its effective increase in the cost of hiring new employees and its huge tax increase on investment income and small businesses begining after 2013. This week’s Rasmussen poll on ObamaCare shows 57 percent favoring repeal — the same number that disapproves of Obama’s presidential performance. Of that, 46 percent strongly favor repeal — indicating that support for repeal, like disapproval of Obama’s presidential performance, is solid.
What the voters appear to want most — which would release the pall over the economy from the huge restructuring of a significant portion of it, pushed through by hyper-partisan legislation in a hyper-partisan process — is the one thing Obama will not give them: the repeal of the program that colloquially bears his name, which he spent the first year of his presidency pursuing while polls (and successive election results in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts) warned him the American people were increasingly opposed.
The dissatisfaction with both his program and his performance is now entrenched. A look at the Boker tov, Boulder graph shows how high the hill is he now confronts.
