Andrew Malcolm just pains me on so many levels:
Obama’s new Gallup Poll job approval number is 47%. Last month it was 53%.
Regular Ticket readers will recall how in this space in late November we pointed out that Obama’s closely watched job approval slide was coinciding with Palin’s little-noticed rise in favorability. And it appeared they might cross somewhere in the 40s.
Well, ex-Sen. Obama, meet ex-Gov. Palin.
The new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Palin now at 46% favorable, just one point below her fellow basketball fan.
The gallup poll is measuring Obama’s job approval. The CNN poll (.pdf) is measuring the favorablity ratings of people in the news.
Pretty impressive, even for a wingnut like Malcolm. He takes the results of two separate polls, measuring two different things, and finds two numbers that are comparable, and gets wood.
And let me remind you that these are the idiots that are attacking the statistical work of climate scientists.
Kryptik
It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect, John.
Misinformed people make conclusions off their ignorance, and mistake said ignorance for intellectual superiority.
Dungheap
Malcolm has been doing this for a few weeks now, notwithstanding that it has been pointed out that favorability ratings and approval ratings measure two different things.
Last time, Drudge rewarded Malcolm for his incompetence. I’d venture a guess that he was similarly rewarded this time.
ChrisS
There seems to be an awful lot of handwringing over Obama’s approval ratings when there wasn’t during the last 4 years of the Bush administration.
I mean, seriously. Bush wishes he had Obama’s approval ratings right now. And what’s dragging down Obama’s ratings? Two wars he didn’t start and can’t end, and a shitty GOP-economy (tax cuts for the rich, job losses for everyone else).
JenJen
Straight outta Drudge! He’s linking that Palin comparison.
Maybe Andrew has forgetten already, but right after the Afghanistan speech at the USMA, the President’s approval rose to 52%. That was just last week, not even as long ago as last month.
I like the way Robert Gibbs addressed this:
Anyone remember the press corps getting palpitations as Bush’s approval started dropping like a stone right after his reelection? I don’t.
Captain Haddock
Forget the fact that one is an elected official making choices that some of the population will disagree with, the other is a on a book tour.
GambitRF
If Palin’s favorability rating passes Obama’s job approval rating, that means global warming is fake, right?
matoko_chan
Palin is running.
She is all they got.
Pawlenty is invisible, Petraeus turned them down like 50 times, and a segment of the WEC base would vote a satan ticket before they would nominate a mormon.
‘sides, she has to cock-tease the rabble while she’s still got it…..she will be post-menopausal in 2016.
I think her neck is already getting crepey.
Was that sexist?
;)
JenJen
I’m reminded of that classic line by David Plouffe: “Politics is a comparative exercise.”
Indeed. It’s too bad our breathless awesome media has never taken a political science class, because had they, they’d know none of this means jack. Right?
Max
Those same polls told us Hillary was inevitable to be elected President in 2008.
Saw this on link on Twitter (also on Sully), and it really says a lot of what I feel about those “progressive” sites.
Why I left the Left.
Food for thought.
JenJen
@matoko_chan: It’s a little sexist, but then so is Palin. I mean, it begs the age-old question: “So, would you be lining up for eight hours to get your book signed if Palin was still Palin, but looked like Janet Reno?”
OK, that was sexist. But dammit, it’s true.
JohnR
“..these are the idiots that are attacking the statistical work of climate scientists.”
Well, that’s why. They’re what I’ve heard called “innumerate”, or perhaps a better description would be that they treat math as they treat anything; filter it through their ideological prism so that anything which produces a result that they like is right and anything else is wrong. I just don’t understand anyone who takes anything that comes from the right as serious any more. They don’t even try to hide it. Listening to any of them, from the lowliest blogger to the high-and-mightiest Senator is just like reading Pravda. It’s simply naked and unashamed bullshit, but apparently we’re all required to accept it as The Word.
phantomist
Overall support for Roe -v- Wade stands at 56%.
Mitch McConnell has job approval at 14%.
=Killing babies is 4x more popular than republican leadership.
Lolis
I hope these idiots get confident (read: delusional) enough to think that Sarah’s favorability ratings mean she could possibly win as the 2012 nominee. That would be awesome.
noncarborundum
@phantomist:
I know no one cares about this any more but me, but it’s “4x as popular”, not “4x more popular”, which would be 70 [14 + (4 x 14)].
And stay off my lawn.
Morbo
WTF?! The proper title for “ex-Sen. Obama” is “president.” As much as “deference” for political figures galls me, trying to make the elected president and the resigned unemployed governor somehow equivalent in station is absolute and total bullshit. What a hack.
JenJen
@Morbo: WOW. Nice catch, and can’t believe we all glossed right over that.
Here’s a question for Malcolm: Is Laura Bush an ex-librarian, or the former First Lady?
Somerville
Did anybody notice that Al Gore’s approval rating (52%) is higher then Sarah’s?
Stefan
If Palin’s favorability rating passes Obama’s job approval rating, that means global warming is fake, right?
Afraid not. What will actually happen is that Obama will be removed from office and Palin will be sworn in in his stead. Read the Constitution, idiot.
John PM
Slightly off-topic, but since we are talking wingnuts:
The ABA Journal just released its list of the best 100 legal blogs for 2009, and one of the top ones was Bench Memos from National Review Online. The explanation given for this is that Ed Whelan’s outing of “Publius” is the kind of controversy that makes the blog so compelling. I think I may need to cancel my membership in the ABA if this is what they are putting up as one of the best legal blogs. Notably absent is Glenn Greenwald, who is focused on Gitmo and State Secrets and such, instead of on more important news regarding the identity of an anonymous blogger.
donovong
It’s simply another example of the “R’s” creating their own reality. AKA “We will be greeted as liberators,” and “WMD’s.” Numbers mean nothing to them.
Tom Hilton
@Morbo: great catch. The fact that so many of us missed it amid the other stupidity is the real measure of how awful ex*-right-wing-political-operative Andrew Malcolm is.
*Or maybe not ex-.
Joel
Really? People have a 46% favorability rating of Sarah Palin? That doesn’t smell right, even given the P.T. Barnum effect.
Sue
Well, I for one hope there’s one more spot on that Pulitzer board.
Tom Hilton
I guess a President of the United States is sort of like an “ex-governor”, except that you have actual responsibilities.
Zifnab
@matoko_chan: Palin will run in the primary, but I honestly don’t see her posting numbers much better than Fred Thompson. Sarah isn’t the least bit interested in the actual work of campaigning. She’ll take the free ride as long as it lasts, then move on to some think tank or talk radio show and turn into a dumber Pat Buchanan, you betcha.
Mittens Romney will take the nomination and proceed to put the entire nation to sleep. Obama will win the popular vote with something like a 55-45 split, because that’s how these things always go.
The only real question in 2012 is how big the Glen Beck 9/12 Tea Bagger movement has become and whether or not we’ll get to see a Ralph Nader style campaign that the GOP can blame for all their loses.
CalD
Well it wouldn’t make much of a story if they reported that apples-to-apples, President Obama’s favorability rating is typically running about 10- 20% higher than celeb’ Palin’s, depending on the pollster.
http://www.slate.com/id/2236604/
Comrade Darkness
For what it’s worth, Obama needs to piss off far more than 50% of people to get the shit done that needs to get done. Oh, like, actually paying down the debt==taxes which will make 70% hate his guts.
matoko_chan
actually, conservatism has become completely disenfranchised from science and pop culture and academe.
So they try to make their own…..their own polling firms (Rassmussen), their own statistics, their own media (FOXnews).
Where they hit the wall is trying to make their own science…like legislating Schiavo back to functionality or insisting that IDT is anything but a tricked out young earth creationism or that aSCR is superior to aSCR.
Fail.
So conservatives are trying to create their own math were Palin is somehow equivalent to Obama.
One of these things is not like the other.
;)
Leelee for Obama
OT-listening to the grilling in the Hill for McChrystal and Eikenberry. Kline of Minnesota is having hissy-fits over whether there is a command in place to use “success” and not say “victory”, because, of course, we all know our military personal need us to say WIN and VICTORY or they know we don’t support them. Who was it that said only Bachmann’s Minnesota was stoopid? That is obviously incorrect. I’d have thought that the most important thing the military personal would need is the equipment and support to get to “success” or “winning” or” victory” or whatever? Also, Kline wanted to know if the 2011 deadline, that isn’t a deadline, was his proposal….
I will now listen to music, which, I’ve been told, can soothe the savage breast. My breast is quite savage just now, thanks to Kline of Minnesota. How the hell can anyone take this asshat seriously?
Comrade Darkness
@Zifnab: I don’t think Palin is really going to run. I think she’s going to wink and nod and suck up the wingnut welfare for 3 years on their fantasies. Her record shows one thing very clearly: she does not like to work hard. Running for president is a buttload of work. And while the opportunities to practice her old games of expensing her family to the state (or in this case, the campaign) may be tempting, even someone with her weak grasp of arithmetic will notice that working 20 hours a day on a campaign renders her hourly wage something in the range of waitress, but without the tips.
matoko_chan
Zifnab, Palin will win the primary because a lot of WECs hate Mormons worse than satan.
She doesn’t have to work to do it.
JenJen
@Zifnab: Am I the last Juicer who truly believes to the core of her being that Palin is running for President in 2012 about as much as I’m running for President in 2012?
camchuck
Here’s some simple math:
a = stupid
b = lying
c = Andrew Malcolm
a+b = c
a+b = 100%
a and b may or may not cross at 50%.
matoko_chan
Guyz, she doesn’t have to work.
‘sides she wants to show the elites and that snooty Obama that she is a REAL candidate.
hehe
The conservative wideboiz know she cant win, but I dont see how they can stop her.
Shes got the nom.
Evel Librul Rithmetic
You’d think the Rasputin people would supposed to be able to do things like add figures together. But then again this is for Faux – like somebody’s going to check their figures as long as they say what they want them to say. ha ha ha ha. I get joke now – Rupert one funny guy – want happy ending with that?
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/08/fox-poll-120/
Zifnab
@JenJen: No way Palin is going to turn down jet setting around the country to get her face plastered all over the news for some six straight months. She’s too much of a media whore.
She’s absolutely running.
@matoko_chan: They’ll come home to Mittens when they look at the other side of the ticket. It might kill enthusiasm. Romney certainly isn’t the Jesus For President that Bush managed to be. But Romney has all the money connections. Huckabee was a terrible fund raiser and that killed his aspirations. McCain was the institutional candidate in 2008, and that gave him the edge. Now Romney is going to fill that void. He’s glad-handed and baby kissing his way through the upper eschalons of the GOP hierarchy and he’ll be the party approved pick in 2012.
Rock
Yeah, but climate “scientists” are biased, so you can’t trust those numbers. Malcolm is simply noting facts here. Name one item he wrote that isn’t true!
john b
ahahahah
Comrade Darkness
@matoko_chan: Even getting carted first class on a velvet pillow from city to city and greeting roaring crowds. It’s still 20 hours of interviews (which she sucks at, so that will be extra work due to stress), waving, pressing flesh. 5-6 cities a day at the peak. Zero time for yourself. (Well, she doesn’t spend time with her family, even for meals, according to the kiddies… so she won’t miss that.) And the norm for this is now 2 years of it. No way, no how.
She’s not going to be able to play the McCain game of denying interviews to her royal self when she’s on the top of the ticket. The press will turn on her. They live for access and will get vicious. I’d love for her to run, just to watch the bloodshed from dissed press alone. [insert evil laugh here]
Common Sense
I think you guys are being unfair. It’s impossible to get an apples to apples comparison of this because you can’t get an accurate job approval rating for Palin. She has no job.
Nazgul35
Worse….this is the second time, after I am sure it was pointed out to him that his comparison was total crap…and he still went forward and did it a second time, with full knowledge that his comparison was crap!
asiangrrlMN
@Nazgul35: Well, since he suffered no blowback the first time, why not do it again?
Seriously. As long as these people don’t suffer any ill for their stupidity (and are, indeed, rewarded), then why should they change?
@Common Sense: And this, my friend, was laugh-out-loud funny.
Comrade Darkness
@Common Sense: If she were still governor of Alaska, asking a national audience to rate her for job approval still wouldn’t make any sense. Trouble is, if you were to ask me personally if Palin was doing well as Teabagger Spokesmodel (her current paid position), I’d say, oh yeah, she’s doing a great job.
The weapons she’s dropping for her future political opponents to pick up and use against her are stunning. “Sarah, She couldn’t finish 4 years as governor, what makes you think she’ll finish 4 years as president” Dun dun DUN.
Senyordave
She’ll have to debate Romney at least five times. Eventually she will start contradicting herself. By the time the Republicans are done they will be so scary to anyone who isn’t hard-core Republican, I can’t see them attracting many moderates unless the country is in real bad shape.
If she is the candidate two things will happen she doesn’t want:
She will have to give interviews to non-Fox-type media outlets
They will look at every financial transaction she has ever been involved at (including her income tax filings which probably had to be re-filed because she took per diem and didn’t consider it income).
I definitely don’t want her to run, I think she is terrible fo rthe political process. I don’t have any use for Huckabee or Romney, but they are basically just politicians I strongly disagree with.
Palin is dangerous. She is a compulsive liar who has a fanatical core of followers.
I have thought for a while that Palin is a sociopath:
Traits of a sociopath
Factor 1
Aggressive narcissism
1.Glibness/superficial charm
2.Grandiose sense of self-worth
3.Pathological lying
4.Cunning/manipulative
5.Lack of remorse or guilt
6.Emotionally shallow
7.Callous/lack of empathy
8.Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Factor 2
Socially deviant lifestyle
1.Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
2.Parasitic lifestyle
3.Poor behavioral control
4.Promiscuous sexual behavior
5.Lack of realistic, long-term goals
6.Impulsiveness
7.Irresponsibility
8.Juvenile delinquency
9.Early behavioral problems
10.Revocation of conditional release
I think she has most of Factor 1 completely nailed!
Matthew B.
@noncarborundum:
“Four times more popular” means exactly the same thing as “four times as popular,” and has since at least the 16th century. The idiom doesn’t cause any misunderstandings among native speakers. See the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage.
Phantasy News Channel
You know, one of these days Faux News is going to stop even trying to pretend that they’re ACTUAL news. What then? Re-runs of “The Brady Bunch”, “I Love Lucy” or “M*A*S*H” twenty four seven? Actually – I’m okay with that.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/8/811960/-Ooops,-they-did-it-again
JenJen
@Zifnab: But, as far as I can see, there is no shortage of wingnut welfare available to her. She can zip around the country, flying on private jets and making loads of cash, without ever dipping a toe into the Republican primaries. I’m not seeing it. Running for President is hard work, it takes at least two years, and remember, unlike any of the candidates for 2008, Palin only got a six-week taste of the rigors of the national campaign trail.
She’d have to give interviews… lots of ’em. She’d have to sit down with editorial boards in Nashua and Des Moines. She’d have to suffer through debates… not just one, against one person, but instead lots of ’em, against lots of candidates.
I think that what people are missing is that candidate Obama and his team laid off Palin after she was announced as Veep. Plouffe writes again and again that the opponent was John McCain, and they kept their eyes on the ball. In other words, that six-week taste she had last fall is misleading. No way would fellow GOP candidates in a primary situation go easy on her. Primaries in modern times tend to be a lot rougher than general elections… if a, say, Mitt Romney really thinks the nomination is worth having in 2012, then he’s going to rake her over the coals to get the prize.
She’s not running. She’s telegraphed that to her supporters over and over: “You don’t need a title to make a difference.” In her case, she’s right… our media will cover her every word, tweet and Facebook entry, regardless. She wants a voice, but she doesn’t want a leadership role. She doesn’t need to run and I don’t see any advantage she’d gain from running.
If she’s running for anything, it’s America’s Next Great Talk Show Host.
Lyle4
@Tom Hilton:
You, sir, are the winner of the internet for today.
eemom
This reminds me of the “dueling speeches” bullshit these buffoons were peddling when Cheney was spewing his bile to a crowd of wingnut groupies on the same day that the President of the United States made a speech.
That’s what they’ve got to “compare” Obama to. Cheney and Palin. The devil himself and a glorified bimbo.
And as for remarks about Palin being “sexist,” fuck that. When you actively exploit your womanhood to get what you want, you lose the right to whine about “sexism.”
JenJen
Just to add on to my diatribe in #26…. I do think Palin has to continue to tease the media in order to get them to track her every move. In that sense, she wants us to think she’s mulling over a run at the Presidency. And she’ll milk that for as long as she can… without running. And then, she’ll be hired (likely by FNC) to handicap and provide commentary throughout the primaries and the general election itself.
JenJen
Gack! No edit… I meant my diatribe in #46. Sorry.
Comrade Darkness
@JenJen: If she’s running for anything, it’s America’s Next Great Talk Show Host.
This I can see. If she keeps a button in her hand at all times that controls her guest’s mic, I can REALLY see it.
cleek
it’s hard work for a normal person: one who sees the path others have followed and assumes that’s the how it’s done. but for someone who thinks she’s a different kind of person – one who can stand apart from it all and aw-shucks her way through life – running for president will be a breeze.
while the other candidates are out there knocking on doors, giving speeches and doing everything they can to get in front of the press, Palin will just go skipping merrily along like she always does, and the press will chase after her. she will skip early debates, and nobody will mind. she will charm her way through the other debates and nobody will mind. and no other candidate will dare go after her in public.
if she wants the nomination, she won’t have to work hard to get it.
JenJen
@cleek: With this media of ours, I just don’t see that happening.
Sure, she’s skipping along now and they’re giving her one helluva pass. They want her to run, and the second she says she’s in, that’s their cue to rip her to shreds. We are living with a press that is well-ensconced in Conventional Wisdom, and I don’t think they’re going to let her “trash the place,” you know? I don’t think they’ll allow her to skip the formalities, I just don’t. The 2008 Election, and the year since, are anomalies. Once it’s 2012 Game-On, the rules — the rules they set up, mind you — change.
You don’t really think Haley Barbour (just as an example) is going to take a pass on running Alaska Secession Party ads against her? You don’t think Mitt Romney is going to ignore those ethical complaints, or the fact that she quit halfway through the job? Palin oppo will be a goldmine, and since when do Republicans take it easy on each other? They loved her when they viewed her as a real, tangible threat to the Obama ascendancy, but those days are over. I think they’ll be absolutely ruthless the second she dares to stand in the way of them and the nomination… again, especially if the polls heading into 2012 say the GOP Nomination is worth having.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Any presidential job approval number between 40 and 60 at this stage of an administration basically means just about nothing. 60 meant nothing earlier this year. 47 means just about nothing now. Despite the best efforts of the tv and blog churnmongers, this horse race crap is just … crap.
The poll that counts is the one that will be taken on election day 2012.
As for Palin, anything that gets her involved in that 2012 election is good for my side, so …. keep on keeping on, Republicans. And I say that in the most caring and nurturing way possible.
Shell
Do wingnuts ever reference any other poll than Rasmussen?
It’s incredible that after eight years of a White House saying they don’t listen to polls, they’re misleading, fallible, etc., it’s amazing to see these same types hovering gleefully over every shift in Obama’s ‘likeability’ numbers.
catclub
ChrisS @ 3
“I mean, seriously. Bush wishes he had Obama’s approval ratings right now. And what’s dragging down Obama’s ratings? Two wars he didn’t start and can’t end, and a shitty GOP-economy (tax cuts for the rich, job losses for everyone else).”
Of course those two wars and shitty economy also dragged
down Bush’s approval ratings. So I guess Obama is no different than Bush. QED
JenJen
Oh, this is cute… Gallup has President Obama’s approval at 50% now, after much hand-wringing over that 47% number.
Robert Gibbs was onto something with that six-year-old-with- a-crayon analogy.
Nutella
Gosh, do you think he has an agenda of some sort?
This sentence is particularly stupid. Obviously quitting the governorship of a small-population state in a huff is precisely parallel to winning the presidency during a term in the senate.
phantomist
I’m not so sure a republican primary would get ugly. What do you think will happen when Mittens slams Palin? Those who prefer their tea sans crumpets and sympathy will scream, ‘she’s not a dog on your roof Mr. Magical underpants’, and Mittens cowers in the corner.
cleek
i’m betting they’re all scared shitless of running afoul of the GOP’s biggest celebrity. it’s already a cult of personality. and if Palin keeps herself out of trouble and in the spotlight for the next two years (a decent sized If), she’s going to be the absolute queen of the GOP.
BC
She’s not going to run for president in 2012, but it will be because of all the trauma she went through during her book tour in 2009 – how the press persecuted her, how the liberals sneered at her and said sexist stuff about her. She can play the victim better than anyone on the scene today and her core constituency love the victim better than anyone.
JenJen
@cleek: See, I guess I think her shelf life is limited. It’s awfully rare in American celebrity life (and that’s what she is, a celebrity) that we stay completely enamored with a figure for, say, four solid years. And as far as her competition, well, I certainly never thought Bush/Rove would defeat McCain by suggesting he had fathered an illegitimate child, but these things do happen. Politics ain’t beanbag, not even when it comes to Sarah the Blessed. And the GOP is a nasty bunch.
I really believe it comes down to how valuable that GOP nomination is going to be in 2012. I can see her as a sacrificial lamb, Bob Dole-style, but not as a real contender.
Something Fabulous
@Morbo: THIS! Couldn’t figure out how to articulate it, I was so irked. Thanks!
john b
that seems about right.
Remember November
Mike Judge, American Prophet- watch “Idiocracy” and tell me we’re not strolling down that path, I dare you.
Jeff Fecke
@phantomist:
The fact is that actually polling “killing babies: yes or no?” will probably come up with more than 14% support.
matoko_chan
Zifnab…
dude……they are TEABAGGERS.
lookie.
Simply no cognitive process in effect.
The GOP primary will be NY-29 redux.
They can’t help themselves.
Ash Can
@Phantasy News Channel: I’m assuming that Fox’s “zero-tolerance policy” is going to kick in here and that heads will roll, right?
Actually, if those yutzes were serious about a zero-tolerance policy for on-air fuck-ups, those Brady Bunch reruns may not be too far off. If everyone at Fox who screws up is going to get booted, they’ll barely have enough people to turn on the projector.
Nazgul35
The comments with the post are interesting reading…you can actually feel yourself getting dumber.
ranger11
@Nazgul35:Wow, Nazgul35, commenting eight hours after this thread was dead. You really showed them!