From an AP story about President Obama’s poll numbers:
The erosion of approval is primarily among women. Last month, 57 percent said they felt he deserved re-election, a figure that dipped to 48 percent this month. The decline came almost entirely among white women, just 37 percent of whom say Obama deserves re-election in the new poll.
AP’s headline for the story:
AP poll: Economic worries pose new snags for Obama
Headline for a repost of the story at Fox Nation:
You don’t need to be a dog to hear that whistle.
Han's Solo
You have to be f’n kidding me…
shortstop
In fact, dogs’ ears being so sensitive, America’s canines are currently frantically running up and down, quivering and panting at this gigantic assault on their ears.
ruemara
Careful. A slew of relatively rare commenters will now show up and whine that you’re encroaching on ABL territory.
Just Some Fuckhead
If I had to offer conjecture for the declining support of white women outside the confines of the tired PUMA/EveryoneThatDisagreesWithObamaIsARacist framework, I’d say white Democratic women are probably looking for the emotional connection with the President more so than men. Clinton had the whole faux sympathy thing downpat and was loved by white Democratic women.
Obama doesn’t seem comfortable with the emotional thing and comes across as regretful at best, slightly baleful at worst when trying to convey sympathy.
kd bart
He’s wondering where there at.
PeakVT
That’s fucking outrageous. Scumbags.
Zifnab
This can only be good news for John McCain!
here4tehbeer
At least they didn’t say White Wimminz, although that may have just been an oversight by some Summer intern.
lacp
Hot buttered Jesus. They’re not even fucking pretending to hide it any more.
Cassidy
FOX Nation…Firedoglake…’bout the same damn thing at this point.
Han's Solo
How long until Fox Nation merges with Stormfront?
If you aren’t outraged you really aren’t paying attention.
Culture of Truth
What’s the GOP approval among white women? My understanding is it’s not high.
Rommie
Now I know why Superman built his hideaway in Arctic – his super-hearing would drive him batsnot-crazy if he didn’t have a place to chill out far far away. If Tunch is all irritable today, we’ll know the reason.
Zifnab
@JustSomeFuckhead:
One poll in the middle of July on an off-year cycle means about diddly squat. Keep an eye on Pollster.com or other aggregate sites if you want an idea of how Obama is doing.
http://huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/06/jobapproval-obama_n_726319.html?xml=http://pollster.com/flashcharts/content/xml/Obama44JobApproval.xml&choices=Disapprove,Approve&phone=&ivr=&internet=&mail=&smoothing=&from_date=&to_date=&min_pct=&max_pct=&grid=&points=&trends=&lines=
Drawing sweeping conclusions from one guy’s numbers doesn’t do you any good.
fasteddie9318
@JSF:
I’d start with the fact that a single-month decline of that size in a subset of a subset of a polling sample could easily be an outlier. But I can’t worry about that; I need to lock up my mom and my wife before this crazy n****r comes back to my town. Fox News told me so.
The Ancient Randonneur
Didn’t realize David Duke was working for Fox News.
TR
Jesus Christ. They’re not even trying to hide it now.
Nellcote
I disagree. Oh wait, I’m not white. Carry on…
jayjaybear
Give them some credit…at least they didn’t headline it “Obama: Where All De White Women At?”
Culture of Truth
Just Some Fuckhead,
I can’t agree with that declining support theory, as I’ve seen no evidence of an increasing lack of emotional connectivity from the President, above and beyond any existing such perception. Indeed, the most visible example was quite recently at the Arizona memorial service.
In my opinion the reason is probably economic.
Mattminus
They’ve kind of gotten over a hump where I can’t help but admire their absolute brazenness.
Cat Lady
Fox winks and nudges for old white people who don’t like Obama!? Get outta town!
Well, a white baby girl approves of him. When this gets passed around a few million more times, the older ones will come around.
Citizen_X
If only there some kind of organization, some kind of clan, say, that was dedicated to protecting the virtue of Our White Women, some kind of shining knights in white that could ride in to the rescue…
Violet
Oh my gawd. I know they don’t hide it, but really…they aren’t hiding it at all now, are they?
Culture of Truth
Assuming, as others have said, it’s not just an outlier, diddly-squat poll.
Linda Featheringill
Hey, white men have problems with white women, too.
El Tiburon
Hey, credit where credit is due. The headline writers at Fox are some crazy-talented motherfuckers. They are like the proverbial mastermind criminal who chooses to use their genius for evil instead of good.
It is truly a talent they have to turn everything upside down and ass-backwards. Come on, the talent is admirable. And always transposing the wrong black man for another black man or Tina Fey for Sarah Palin.
I have a sense it’s a bunch of slackers stoned out on pot just seeing how bad they can fuck with everyone and still keep their job.
amk
Pathetic racist pigs.
@ Cat Lady – That was a great vid.
handy
You know who else had a problem with white women?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Just wait until the NFL season is canceled and white women have to deal with their cranky white men getting in the way and messing everything up. Nobody is going to be happy then.
Frankensteinbeck
The human race’s ability to say something that they really didn’t intend to sound like it did should never be underestimated. On the other hand, this is FOX. I… don’t know what to think. CAN they really have meant to put up a headline that sounds this bad?
Poopyman
@jayjaybear:
Beat me to it.
themann1086
Hey where da white wimmin at?
DecidedFenceSitter
Yes, Obama just hates emotion – Obama Calms Wailing Baby.
scarshapedstar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=493pL_Vbtnc
shortstop
I hadn’t bothered to click on that crying baby video before — that really is hilarious.
Chris
That is, unfortunately, increasingly the standard at NewsCorp and company. To the point that I don’t understand why the word “dog-whistle” is even used anymore. I mean, “there are people cheating on welfare” is a dog-whistle. “Obama has a problem with white women” is not.
James E. Powell
I recall, but cannot find right now, an analysis of the 2004 election that argued that the increase in Bush’s popular vote came not from “values voters” turning out to fight teh gay, but from white suburban women, dubbed “terrified moms” or something like that, shifting to the party of Violence Is Strength.
Joel
Sounds like arbitrary endpoints. What happened a month ago? Someone remind me.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Jesus weeping, that’s just awful.
What’s even more awful is that it’s probably gonna work in exactly what it’s mean to do.
trollhattan
This gets at my frustration with the Jon Stewart-Chris Wallace thing: there’s no way for Stewart to adequately state how radical Fox actually is and still come across as reasonable and thoughful and informed. They are simply not a news organization today, even if they once flirted with being one. Allowing Fox to claim they are, even a tiny bit, is a de facto win for them.
GregB
Fox News:
Obama smothers white baby.
News at 11:00.
ABL
Cheese and rice.
fasteddie9318
@handy:
Yeah: me, three days ago when my wife decided that I had somehow used my heretofore latent power to mentally operate electronic devices in order to make her laptop delete an important e-mail. I told her that if I had such a power, I would surely go use it on an ATM somewhere instead of using it to fuck around with her laptop, but that didn’t seem to make her less pissed.
Ash Can
“Whistle”? My ass. I’m going to be deaf for a couple of hours from that headline. Some “whistle.”
dj spellchecka
some other wild stuff in this poll
“Obama faced 59 percent disapproval on his handling of the economy and on unemployment. The steepest decrease was among respondents with incomes above $50,000.”
so, he’s losing ground with the folks doing the best in this economy. [and most likely to have a job]
“He also lost support among self-described independents, from 62 percent approval last month to 43 percent now, his lowest since June 2010.”
19 points in one month? color me dubious.
handy
@fasteddie
heh! that’s like that time my wife backed into a guy leaving a parking lot and then blamed me for it because I had re-adjusted the sideview mirrors when I drove the car earlier.
catclub
Fasteddie @ 44 : but that didn’t seem to make her less pissed.
Funny how that works.
Legalize
I have a problem with white women too. I’m married to one!! Wakka wakka.
Amir_Khalid
That’s not a racist dog whistle, man; that’s a racist train whistle.
shortstop
This line of conversation can only lead to broken crockery and bloodstains on the carpet.
daveNYC
More a racist signal flare.
At least that would have been a Mel Brooks reference.
I figure in six months they’ll just come out with “Obama: Black and scary.”
Thoughtcrime
Or a racist boat whistle:
“Let’s get that boy before he marries my daughter!!!!!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpuJaTA7Txk
Cassidy
So how does this work exactly? The Black Lady sees racism and there are 100+ comments saying how she’s a horrible writer, accusations of alcoholism, and some turd wanting a filter installed because he’s too damn lazy to use his scroll wheel. The white guy sees racism and it’s all agreement and hugs? Starting to wonder just how progressive you guys are.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Cassidy
Feh…one thing I noticed about ABL’s comments list is that a lot of the shitstirrers tend to be names I don’t recognize as regulars around here. Either a lot of lurkers coming out of the woodwork, sockpuppetry, or just a lot of trolling. Sure, I see some regulars giving her shit, but it seems like most of the clogs that come out for ABL’s posts tend to come out ONLY for her posts.
gene108
Obama’s poll numbers seem to be the inverse of gas prices.
When gas prices are up, the economy slows down – people don’t have money to spend on other things – and people get antsie to see if the next guy got better.
It’s not a coincidence that the dip in his poll numbers came, when gas prices shot up and the economy slowed down.
I can’t imagine where we’d be at as an economy, with $50/barrel oil, let alone the $10-$20/barrel for the 1990’s. The free money people would have to spend would just kick start this economy overnight.
Poopyman
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik X 2
boss bitch
Total bullshit.
Poopyman
@ gene108:
Well, today oil dipped 4.4% when the IEA announced the release of 60M bbls of oil, and the Dow dropped almost 200 points, before coming back slightly.
So pick yer poison. Either the stock market stays/goes in the crapper or oil prices come down. As long as traders are using my 401k money to buy oil futures I don’t see a decoupling here.
gene108
@Poopyman:
Meh…I’m not getting worked up by one day changes in prices.
If oil prices hadn’t shot up in April and we didn’t have $4/gallon gas recently, I think the recovery would’ve kept adding 100,000 to 200,000 jobs per month.
Since people are spending more on fuel and food, they aren’t spending it on other things. That caused an already weak level of demand for goods and services to drop even further.
Companies started scaling back hiring and I don’t see them picking it up this summer or maybe even this year, unless there’s a strong resurgence in consumer demand. I don’t see people spending money on goods and services, when so much more is now going towards food and fuel.
Therefore, if the oil prices really drop and gas prices get below $3/gallon, I think the economy will do better, hiring will pick up and thus Obama’s poll numbers will bounce back.
Poopyman
Via Thers, here’s another fine Fox News headline.
If you want to read the article, -you’re going to have to go there yourself-. Actually, here it is. Fuck ’em:
Nemesis
tweety did a segment on this very issue last week. His contention: all the oxygen in the political room is being sucked out by Paylin and BacKKKman. Hence, the Dems have no high profile women to counter the goopers female allsomeness.
Prly the dumbest inside the beltway pablum Ive heard thus far this year.
asiangrrlMN
@Nellcote, I disagree, too. Oh, wait….
Just Some Fuckhead
Well, I did preface it as conjecture. :)
Midnight Marauder
A buddy of mine whipped up an image that perfectly captures the 21st century dogwhistle:
I thought this would be the ideal place to share it.
Judas Escargot
Funny how that works, innit?
BTW, 60M bbl is not even one day’s global consumption (~85bbl/day), and less than three and a half day’s US consumption (~18-19bbl/day). Big swing for such a small proportion.
SiubhanDuinne
@Citizen_X #23:
Welcome to the hood (sheet, I can’t believe I wrote that.)
mclaren
The problem is that gigantic harem of white women Obama keeps in cages in the West Wing. If only he’d keep ’em out of sight, he wouldn’t have this kind of problem.
Of course, walking around with that backwards baseball cap and all that gold bling on his chest doesn’t help Obama’s image either.
daveNYC
Mr. Margin calling on line one.
Perspecticus
I’m sorry but, as ridiculous as that is, that is awesome.
Mike Kay (The Base)
They’re probably referring to the PUMAs like Her Baroness Lady Lynn Forester de Rothchild and Lady Hamsher.
Hal
First, can I just give a little LOL at the sad faced Obama in the photo? Second:
Frank W.
Does anyone else get rather dejected sometimes by reading the same basic stories over and over? Palin is a grifter, FOX lies, Republicans are greedy, some moron or another wants creationism taught…
I want to stay abreast of the news, but sometimes I feel like going Ted Kaczynski (in a completely non-violent way) and moving to a cabin in the woods where I would commune with nature, ponder the stars, chat with squirrels, and drink good beer.
And now I’ll whine for a moment. I keep posting, but get damn few responses. I’ve experimented with thoughtful (I hope), snarky, scatological, literary… mostly I get crickets. Anyone else ever feel that way? I go to this site nearly daily (usually several times a day), and like the give and take. I think I’m among my people, but the frequent thread kills I’ve committed make me wonder.
Brachiator
This reminds me of the pathetic people who have a habit of posting nasty comments about the Obamas whenever they can.
It is interesting how clearly people recognize it for exactly what it is, noxious race baiting. A commenter wrote the following about crazy responses to an article about Michelle Obama’s recent trip to South Africa:
Clearly, some people just love stewing in the juices of their racism. And Fox seems to love to fan the flames of bigotry. But it is a hopeful sign that there are people who are not simply tired of this crap, but who utterly reject it.
SteveM
@ gene108:
A legendary pseudonymous blogger of the last decade named Professor Pollkatz once created a graph showing an extremely close relationship between presidential approval ratings and gas prices. And I mean extremely close (scroll down at the link for Pollkatz’s graph, or go here).
Just Some Fuckhead
@SteveM:
That’s spooky.
shortstop
But god forbid that most Americans should admit that we need to move away from fossil fuels. Climate change is a hoax! I love my semi-sized SUV! I want low gas prices and my president better give them to me! He’s the most powerful man in the world; he can find a way!
Ash Can
@ Frank W: Don’t take it personally if no one responds. I can’t speak for anyone else, but unless I’m actually replying to someone, I’m just throwing crap up against the wall when I post here. Whether or not anyone responds to me makes no difference to me; I’m just mouthing off. And I assume that, in general, everyone else here is the same way. So don’t let a lack of acknowledgment keep you from commenting.
lovable liberal
Fox: “We’re mocking racism by reinforcing it.”
shortstop
I’ll second Ash Can at 78 in toto. Franco, don’t be discouraged–this blog, it’s not so hard to understaaaaaaand. Keep posting and we’ll keep reading and unless someone challenges you to a duel (and sometimes even then), there’s nothin’ to worry about.
Frank W.
Thanks, Ashcan (78) & shortstop (80)… I wondered if maybe I didn’t know the secret handshake… I really don’t expect to get a response to much that I say, but sometimes it seems like long weeks go by with nothin’…
But let out that your dog has a split whisker and the outpouring of sympathy and camraderie is astounding! I DO love animals: got a Netherlands dwarf rabbit, a cat-mutt, and a Havanese dog. I’m not anti-animal!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Frank W #81:
I’ve found that I get more interaction when I quote other people’s comments rather than just posting my own thoughts but YMMV.
See, now I killed the thread. So it isn’t always you.
Just Some Fuckhead
@ThatLeftTurninABQ:
No one killed the thread. 80 comments is pretty impressive for a new guy.
@Frank W.:
First time I recall seeing you comment and I’m pretty on top of shit. Here are some suggestions, in the order you should try them:
1. Get a better screen name, something that sticks out. “Frank” is just boring. I almost immediately started yawning before I even get to the “W.” part.
2. Don’t spend all yer time agreeing. There’s no upside to agreement. If you don’t agree with this, yer catching on.
3. Correct other people’s grammar. This is a surefire way to get on the radar because everyone universally despises a smarmy grammar nazi.
4. If you aren’t comfortable with the heel role, go for the hero role. This means proactively defending Obama from all imagined harm. Protecting the World’s Most Powerful Powerless Man isn’t a job for the weak of heart and the payoff could be as sweet as eemom saying something awkwardly sentimental to you.
5. If you aren’t comfortable with the hero role or the heel role, simply pick a side in the ongoing blogcommentingwars. Half the commenters will love you, half will hate you but all will notice you.
Good luck!
d. john
I agree with Chris.
Can’t believe it’s 2011.
I thought I was gonna finally get a flying car. yay.
Instead I get the reanimated corpse of Lee Atwater. (He’s meaner now.) boo.
I’m disappointed.
Roger Ailes should die of Guinea Worm.
Frank W.
Thanks for the tips, JSFH #83. As a college English instructor, I could certainly see to point #3, but that would be too much like work! I suppose I could find a better poster name, too… Maybe Dipshiticus Rex?
I’ve been trying, actually, to avoid going too negative. I really think that our political discourse has become absolutely toxic. Seems like everyone must be utterly right and those who disagree with us must be demonized and destroyed… That’s probably not my best route.
Nor can I champion everything the big ‘O’ does — just not feelin’ such passion for this administration.
Alright, you gave me some material to consider! And, for the record, your posts always give me a chuckle… Oh, crap, there I go being agreeable again! I’ll work on that… I know — bite me! :)