A Theory for Obama’s Plummeting Approval Rating

posted at 9:31 am on August 31, 2009 by dougpowers
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This morning, I was stuck in traffic for almost an hour due to road construction. During the delay, I was listening to a local talk show, and being discussed was a Rasmussen poll conducted over the weekend that showed President Obama’s approval ratings hitting a new low at 47%.

As I sat still amid a throng of idling cars occupied by frustrated drivers on the verge of road-rage, I looked down the road a bit, and proudly displayed in full view in front of a construction site where nobody was working on a 65-degree sunny morning was a sign just like this one:

From a political sales perspective, I think this was the biggest mistake the Obama administration has made so far — and that’s saying something. There’s nothing worse for a politician than to put a sign up to remind everybody exactly who it was that caused them to be late for work and pissed off that morning. Especially in an area that nobody’s been working in for quite some time.

Obama putting up “Recovery Act” signs that are synonymous with his administration in full view of the accompanying traffic jams has all the sales impact of placing Alpo billboards in front of pet cemeteries.

Road work is a necessary inconvenience (well, often it is anyway), but taking credit for extreme traffic backups is just plain stupid — which is why traffic jams have never been “sponsored” before, and probably never will be again when or if the geniuses behind Hopenchange ever figure this out.

In his insistence upon putting the “stimulus” signs next to highway projects, Obama might be costing himself the 2012 election, one angry driver at a time. Couple that with the “Peggy Effect,” and The One is in trouble.

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I would like to know if anyone here has been in a jam next to 1 of these signs.  Oh and just to let everyone know the stim is only about 10.5% spent so far.  Money, Money, Money, Money, I N F L A T I O N!

Perhaps if Obama implemented some kind of anti road sign policy his approval rating would rise lol.

pretty good discussion ill play.

i think from the scuttlebutt around his ratings will continue to drop and i don't think he will see more than 4 years. he seems like a nice guy and means well and is a people person that can talk a nice game but really knows nothing about foreign affairs and is privately relying on his staff for even the most basic decisions and opinions. now he is having backdoor problems with Israel and Japan (not keeping his word) and pretty soon in less he gets busy with Israel's deadline with Iran that Russia,England And United States have officially received we get to see what kind of military mind he has.

its only 47% now... it's been falling for a while. He spent more money than anyone in only 2 months.

47% approval rating eh? What was Mr Bush's all time low? (and Clinton's)

I found myself going "That's nice you plan on doing this... but tell me the steps you plan to take to accomplish this..."

He had a gift. It was he talked and people heard what they wanted to.

Slime

Bush - 26.1% and Disapproval was 68.7%

Bill Clinton 43%

I am unsure of the context (if these are aggregate, or from a specific pollister):

Lets try RCP's fantastic aggregate for Obama:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

Unfortunately, I can't embed the poll. They have Obama at 51.2% approval, and 42.4% disapproval - a 8.8% margin. This is down from a 40-44% margin immediately after inaguration (1/28 through 2/17). He maintained a +30% margin for almost 4 solid months - from January through mid May.

I don't think the entire issue has to do with roadsigns - although I don't think it helps when the road work is being done in places that are perfectly fine!!! I am writing this just 2 miles away from a stretch of road being worked on thanks to the stimulus bill. It did not need any work. Whatsoever. It is a parcel of road that gets worked on every 5 years due to traffic volume.  Total waste of cash.

I think Obama's problems are:

• Unrealilistic standards set by his constituency. He was seen as Savior Obama, the Messiah of the evil Bush empire.
• Lack of controlling any agenda. He made a few great moves early on, and I'd say that I even thought he did a fantastic job the first 2-3 weeks of his presidency.
• Lack of experience. Let's face it, the guy is totally green. We thought we bought a Peyton Manning, and we may have purchased a Ryan Leaf.

I hope, for this nations future, and even if it costs another 4yrs of Democrat/leftist rule, he does a good job for America's sake.....But it sure isn't looking that way yet.

+ Stickball there is the civil war between the Panetta types and the Rahmbo Deadfish Emmanuel types of the admin and all the while Obama has been shooting the breeze (for the most part anyway since EMK died) in Commis Vineyard.

What goes up must come down.

I think this is a good thing for him, then people wouldn't expect Jesus out of him.