Gallup has an interesting tool that allows comparing presidential approval ratings. The graph above (click to embiggen) is Obama vs Clinton, Carter and the average among Democrats. As you can see, for all the talk about Obama’s unpopularity among members of his party, he’s generally doing better than the Big Dog, and he’s doing much better than Carter and the historical average. He’s doing a bit worse than average among Republicans, and about the same as the others among Independents.
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CarolDuhart
Which is why the emoprogs are crying for a primary challenge, and getting no takers. No real politician wants to nuke their career over this, and nobody but a real politician can make a dent in those numbers. And real politicians are looking also at 2016 and a probable open primary. In that primary, the support of Obama’s Army will make the difference-and if you want to win as opposed to making a futile statement, you need Obama’s support.
Count me as one of the satisfied Democrats who support Obama. Maybe I’m an Obot, but I’m a proud one. He’s the most inclusive and intelligent President in my lifetime, one that includes John F Kennedy, no intellectual slouch either. Some say he’s too cerebral compared to their image of a
schlemizel - was Alwhite
I still say the critical block for his reelection chances are the moron contingent. The “low information” voters who spend less than 5 minutes considering their choices. As much as this administration has done to alienate its supporters the impression of it in the minds of the doofus platoon is key.
If they see him as a good guy who tried really hard to be fair & balanced he can have a second term. If they see him as weak-willed & incapable of making things better we can all look forward to the Perry Apocalypse Express.
Before accusing me of being a firebagger emoprog please note that those two competing profiles are floating around in the – what we shall call for lack of a better term – “brains” of low information voters. Like Boy Blunders nice guy image they may have no relationship to reality but that does not really matter, does it.
Anya
Shhh, don’t tell Crooks and Liars and other “progressive” sites. They so want President Obama to be a one term president that they push the MSM narrative and this little fact is so inconvenient.
cleek
h8rz gunna h8
A Mom Anon
Imagine that.
I just saw Bill Clinton on the Today Show(Matt Lauer is a nitwit,for the record) and was glad to hear him say that Republicans are non co-operative and this lack of co-operation has a direct effect on economic policy. He also said this bullshit is good for teevee and politics but does nothing for policy,even as Lauer was trying to pull the”but,but,Democrats do it too”. So good on the Big Dog for that at least. Hopefully he’ll be around on the teevee this week repeating that.
CarolDuhart
But that’s another thing Obama has in his back pocket. He’s seen as likeable. Also Obama has a messaging group second to none. It may not seem like it if you watch cable tv, but Obama gets big crowds every time he leaves town, and practically lives on local tv as well. I have no fear that Plouffe and the Obama army will get his message out to the many distracted voters out there.
He also will benefit from his opposition. Name one of the Republicans out there that are likeable. From Perry to Palin, all of them come off as mean and narrowminded-not a way to win elections. Which is why the Republicans are doubling down on voter suppression tactics and I believe, are trying to jump start the old divide-and-conquer tactics. What is new is that there’s now pushback on both.
Keith
@CarolDuhart: You hit the nail on the head re: likeability. Having lived in Perryland for its entirety, lemme tell you that it gets REAL old having an elected leader who figures that if you didn’t vote for him, then fuck you (as opposed to trying to win you over next time or at least not twist the knife)
Omnes Omnibus
@schlemizel – was Alwhite: I don’t think you are wrong about this. But it does does go to the heart of some of the concerns raised about firebaggers; criticisms of Obama from purported allies that reinforce the “weak-willed” image are not helpful. This is why many people, myself included, have tried to suggest that character criticisms are tactically dangerous and should probably avoided in favor of policy criticisms. All of this, of course, assumes that the critic is actually interested in a Democratic presidential win in 2012.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed – but how do progressives who are unhappy with the current Democratic position push for a return to sane government?
Obviously they can’t use Republican narratives (a crime Obama and a ton of elected Dems are guilty of). It is very important to not single out Obama as the source of the problem while getting the administration to see they are part of the problem.
We can’t have a “no criticism” policy. I think some on the left have taken a bad approach but we have to move the goddamned overton window a few miles to the left – maybe not over night but at least get it started.
What is “acceptable criticism”?
CarolDuhart
@Keith: And Keith, it may work in a nasty state, but not nationwide in a campaign that is long enough and intrusive enough to bring out every flaw a human being has. Which is why I think I’m the only supporter of our long campaign season. It tires candidates out enough that we get a good look at the real person. It’s easy to fake it in a short few weeks, but over 13-14 months? Not even the greatest actor can fake it that long under such a blazing hot spotlight.
Likeability is also important if you want to get the crossover votes needed to win. Where would Reagan-likeable Reagan, have been without “Reagan Democrats”? Clinton without crossover votes? Even Baby Bush tried to come across as a “guy you would like to have a beer with”. People don’t vote for folks they don’t like (Nixon is an exception, but with riots in the street, they decided they could put up with him).
Mino
@cleek: And if they really believe that of progressive bloggers, I know another set that’s pretty emo.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
How about maybe working to elect some other real Democrats to the House? The Senate, maybe?
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, it’s so amazing that in this government built of three co-equal branches, only one branch– and only one man– gets all the “criticism.”
Gee, I wonder why that might be?
Omnes Omnibus
@schlemizel – was Alwhite: I don’t do a divide into acceptable and unacceptable. I think that does get into the most valid criticism of Obots. I would just ask that critics think about whether the way they phrase their criticism could be used by the right and an “even liberals say…” argument and, if so, try to come up with another way of saying it. There are two games being played at once here: trying not to let the GOP get the White House and trying to shift the national policy conversation to left. Tough needle to thread….
John X.
I remember when Obama supporters were inspiring. You lot are just sad. “Emoprogs” and “firebaggers”, really? You sound like rejects from the John Birch society.
The thing this poll shows is that Democratic leaders have not done a good job for a LONG time. LBJ was a warmonger, Carter was a disaster, Clinton was an embarrassment and Obama is a disappointment.
Maybe one day I’ll live to see an effective Democratic president who inspires people beyond a dispirited, angry lump of supporters.
Mino
@CarolDuhart: It sure as hell exposed McCain. But Bush was a better actor than McCain.
Mino
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: What? Have you seen Congress’ approval numbers? I do agree with the better Dem, though not a real option in my red state. At least my rep is Charlie Gonzales, who would be the last Dem standing if Texas gerrymandered out all the Dem House seats but one.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
It’s already been said in this thread — stick to policy.
Yet, also realize that, at some point, you and everyone need to make a choice, and that spending all day and night beating on Obama for poor choices is oftentimes cathartic, yet rarely makes a real dent in the issues you care about. I’m reasonably certain no one on Obama’s staff is reading the comments section of BALLOON JUICE.
The best way to criticize any politico is to actually organize to take on their policies, and to make better policies. I was proud, for example, that towards the end of the election cycle the biggest group on the official Barack Obama website forums was the one opposing his opinions on the FISA rulings and laws. I was disappointing all they seems to do was collect on the website — a site filled to the brim with tools for self-organizing — and complain, and then disperse after the election.
In other words, stop praying for Obama to implement Policy X, and help make room yourself, with your words and deeds and organizational skills, for Policy X to be more easily done. There’s a lot of space on the Left for actually organizing people for these goals, for doing things that MoveOn and similar groups aren’t maybe doing to their fullest capacity. For the kind of Letters to Congress and similar tools that can even capture media attention, if played right.
THAT’S the way to not just criticize, but to actually make change happen. And I presume that’s your actual goal, yes?
Omnes Omnibus
@John X.: Okay, can you suggest a left-of-center president who wasn’t a disappointment in some way? I bet not.
magurakurin
@schlemizel – was Alwhite: One tactic would be to avoid starting comments with things like “So, Obambie caved again.” Even if the next sentence contains a compelling and convincing policy critique, the attack on Obama’s character is a turn off to some and it reinforces the negative image that the opposition is only happy to see be reinforced. I think the point of acceptable criticism is to never ever attack the character of someone on your team. Attack the policy, but not the man.
Of course I don’t really think the people who say things like that are actually Democrats anyway. They are Nader voters who just happened to vote for Obama in 2008 and really never could be considered reliable votes. The strange part is the way the so consider themselves “the base.” If you say you won’t vote for the Democratic nominee, basically for any reason other than he was caught eating babies, you are pretty much, by definition, not the base. The base votes no matter what for the guy with a D next to his name, just the same as the opposition base pulls the R lever. Hell, 50 million of them pulled the R lever even though Sarah P. was on the ballot. That’s a base. The most vocal of the so-called “left” in the United States are not the base of anything.
Mino
@Omnes Omnibus: For that matter, can you suggest a right of center one who wasn’t a disappointment to his supporters in some way.. Even Reagan, before his hagiography began.
CarolDuhart
@Mino: I agree, either Bush was a better actor, or was better stage-managed and disciplined. We saw some of the same elements in Bush, but only in off moments.
LBJ a warmonger? Really, he continued Kennedy and Eisenhower
s war, expanded the safety net and Civil Rights. I think he wanted to withdraw, but we were a decade just past McCarthy where a closeted pol just had to say “soft on communism” to get elected. With his already controversial stand on Civil Rights, he probably could ill afford something like that. If we had elected Humphrey, we could have had a faster drawdown instead of Nixon’s doubledown.
Carter? The Peace Agreement that has prevented a massive war in the Middle East from happening long enough for it not to be a tripwire to nuclear conflagration? His efforts for alternative energy? No, he didn’t get the hostages out in time, but there’s something called “an October Surprise” you need to read about.
Clinton? Bosnia, and there’s no draw people into a big civil war endangering the new democracies of Eastern Europe. The Clinton boom that allowed the growth of the internet, and through it Obama’s election?
Keep waiting for your pony.
beltane
Thanks for posting this. All the Clinton nostalgia I’ve been seeing leaves me somewhat perplexed, as I get the feeling these people lived through a different Clinton administration than the one I remember. There are many things about the ’90s worth feeling nostalgic over (who among us would complain about gas being $.90 a gallon) but Bill Clinton’s bold progressive record is not one of them.
amk
Kabooom. PL (pretend left / pouraged left) heads explode all over blogisthan.
To have such steady numbers in the face of 24×7 attacks from the rwnj’s, msm hacks & pundtwits and the whiny PL and most importantly, in such a sucky econ, is simply amazing.
cleek
@Mino:
just as an experiment, i went over to FDL right now to see what kind of stories they were doing on anything Obama-related. there’s one; it’s about an Obama tax proposal to replace the AMT with a tax on high earners. seems like a reasonable idea, IMO.
the comments are 5:1 anti-Obama. and the comments that aren’t anti- are just wonky policy things. no support there. not a bit.
doesn’t take an emo to know they hate him. just gotta read what they write about him.
Admiral_Komack
Hey now!
Obama’s losing his base!
You’re not reading it right!
Obama’s losing his base because…because…SHUT UP, that’s why! (snark)
CarolDuhart
@amk: It is, isn’t it? Part of it I think has to be his character-he seems to be bullet-proof there. I also think he’s more politically astute than people give him credit for-even a short list of what he’s done is pretty impressive, all in the face of a Congress that seems to live in the playpen after 2010.
The best way to effectively criticize Obama is to first give him a Congress he can work with and who can be pressured to work with him. As long as Obama has to use executive orders and regulatory methods to get most of his stuff done, he has little room to really manuever. If Obama gets what he had in 2009, a Democratic Congress, more can get done and get passed.
Ben Cisco
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
This should be stamped (with a branding iron) on the heads of some pundits/bloggers I know…
amk
@CarolDuhart: It just goes to show, when it comes to Obama personally, the general public doesn’t give a shite about what all those morans in that list say about him.
Mino
@cleek: I was just pointing out the intolerance is on both sides. (I know, weak sauce: both sides do it.) If you don’t word your critical statements delicately enough, your’re not a Dem but a Naderite. Huh?
The stories at GOS were pretty balanced. I don’t read the obvious ranters on either side of Obama or P/J foodfights.
Cat Lady
@cleek:
I believe you – who do they think is going to be their Savior? I’ve asked that question every time one of them comes here to whine, but there’s never any name offered.
Matt McIrvin
Is there a comparison of the relative numbers of self-identified Democrats/independents/Republicans between these time periods? I’m wondering if Obama is really doing better, or if the landscape has just changed such that people are more likely to express dissatisfaction with the President by changing their party identification. That would leave Obama with a dwindling core of strong supporters in the Democratic camp.
Admiral_Komack
@cleek:
…and why would I want to read anything by Queen Jane of the Ratfuck?
(don’t answer; it’s a rhetorical question.)
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Black, black, blacketty, BLACK.
amk
@John X.:
And yet you whine on about “Obama supporters” are soooo uncivil. If you probably got out of permanent poutrage, you might see & hear things differently.
Mino
@amk: You know what, Obama is likeable among a flood of very unlikeable politicians. Compare him to just about any Congresscritter.
amk
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: What Admiral_Komack said.
amk
@Mino: Read the poll again. It’s about Presidential approval numbers, not about likeability factor, which is much, much higher.
And don’t compare apples & oranges, for pits’ sake.
El Cid
If you look further out, you note that Carter has a huge return to popularity, peaking about 2 3/4 years in.
Mino
@amk: when it comes to Obama personally
I was responding to this.
Woodrowfan
@cleek:
I love reading a lot of the front pagers on C&L, bur damn, they have the worst commenters this side of The Democratic Underground. A weekend post that attacked Michelle Bachman for her anti-vaccine stance ended up with a ton of regulars ranting about Big Pharm and vaccines did too cause autism because some website run by some nutjob said so!
amk
@Mino: you can add personally as a President, if you like. I mean he is not your uncle/bff.
Admiral_Komack
@amk:
Maybe he doesn’t like the push back from those persons that support President Obama.
satby
@John X.:
You clearly have no clue about how vile the John Birch Society was. Look at Perry, Paul, and Bachman: the intellectual decendants of the JBS if you need examples.
mai naem
I like Obama as a person just not sure if he’s assholish enough to be president. And, yeah, I would vote for him again. But I am not happy with him even though I am not sure what he can really do to improve anything.
amk
@satby: Just be happy that john didn’t go all godwin on us “Obots”. I frankly expect the PL to got ape shit crazy in the run-up to 2012 and openly use teabagger terms & pics when it comes to Obama and his supporters.
Mino
@amk: Nice of you to edit me.
And he would not be a nephew, not vice versa.
Woodrowfan
Looking back, I can’t see any left-of-center President who hasn’t done something that disappointed the left. You never get the whole Xmas list, but you keep pushing to get what you can. The left was disappointed with LBJ and Humphrey, and we got Nixon instead. We were disappointed in Carter and we got Reagan. We were disappointed in Clinton/Gore and got Bush II. We can’t afford to let our (very understandable) disappointment in Obama leave us with Perry!
CarolDuhart
@CarolDuhart: Continued: but I like intelligence in a President, and the smarter, the better,
Something tells me that at the last minute, it’s going to be Cornell West. The primary Obama people are running out of time, and never had any prospects that panned out. So they will have to get somebody to run their purist campaign-and I mean somebody, for I doubt if there are 6 people out there who want to run against Obama who aren’t Republicans. Cornell will be seen as a way to deflect “race card” criticisms and is available immediately.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Just fuck LBJ.
I’ll be here every time he gets mentioned.
Matt McIrvin
@El Cid: “If you look further out, you note that Carter has a huge return to popularity, peaking about 2 3/4 years in.”
I think that’s actually the beginning of the Iran hostage crisis! We remember it as a disaster for Carter, but he was in the doghouse before it began, and he got a giant crisis spike in popularity at first, like a more modest version of 9/11. It was only when it was clear that he wasn’t going to make it better that his popularity vanished again.
Mino
@CarolDuhart: And 6 people will vote for him.
Mino
@satby: I think they are worse. Birchers were semi-underground. These sociopaths are out and proud.
Admiral_Komack
@Mino:
Tavis Smiley has six votes?
keith G
I see we are still preemptively attacking the “left”. Good stuff that.
Mino
@Admiral_Komack: LOL. I guess there are delusional folks out there.
But maybe the trip switch is set too low is all I’m saying.
amk
@keith G:
Isn’t that the specialty of the “left” being willingly nose-led by the msm hacks & pundtwits?
What we are doing is rubbing your face in those approval numbers in the hope that you will wake up and smell what you’re shoveling.
Omnes Omnibus
@ keith G.: No, we are discussing Obama’s popularity and politically useful ways of expressing criticism. For the most part…. I guess it really depends where you want to focus your attention – on the main conversatioN or the distracting irritants. That is entirely up to you.
Bob L
@John X.:
Why stop there John? Wilson was an outright racist, FDR started a war and interned the Japanese, Truman as short and dropped the bomb and Kennedy was a womanizer. Huh what, looks like there are NO Democratic presidents who meet your purity test John. EVER!
No John, you are the extremist, just like the tea party, you demand an ideological purity that isn’t possible in a democracy. Now go vote for that wannabe dictator Nader.
General Stuck
Thanks for the dose of reality, Mr. Mix.
And if all you do is criticize, then chances are u r doing it wrong. If you get to the point where the only response is calling folks “hippy punchers” then you likely don’t have the information to back up your critiques. If you fall into calling the president “wimp” “pusssy” and the like of personal insults, then you are a fucking firebagger and can eat shit and die.
scav
For a cheap giggle, go to the site and compare the overall approval trends for all the presidents (takes some clicking on and off). Looks to lowly me like the one most similar to Obama’s to date is the sainted Ronnie’s. That should be useful sock-stuffing to have handy to plug the mouths of some. Then throw in Clinton. I think he’s next closest in general trends tracking — go figure.
kay
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
Absolutely. And I would go further. You may certainly criticize any way or in any manner you choose. But, if you’re going to do that in the political realm, outside of pure policy, except push-back in the political realm, because it is inevitable and it is going to happen. You can’t deliver a detailed critique on Obama’s political approach and then retreat to “we’re upset with the policy” as a defense.
As an example, if Paul Krugman wants to critique on the politics of Obama’s approach, great, good, he should. But he can’t then complain if he gets a political response from either Obama’s campaign or Obama supporters, and insist it’s about policy, so therefore beyond reproach. He’s in that arena. He put himself there. What did he think was going to happen? No response? No defense? Since when is the political realm like that, “oh, well, we’ll just agree to disagree on that”? I just think that if you use the phrase “political malpractice” you should expect a defense on that. That it came (eventually) is, to my mind, absolutely predictable, and as it should be. He was really surprised that the Obama campaign hit back politically to his critique of their political strategy or tactics? How else would they hit back? It’s what they do. They operate solely in that realm.
gogol's wife
@CarolDuhart:
You’re great. Please keep coming around. This blog needs more commenters like you. ETA: This comment is meant seriously, not snarkily, since I can’t seem to avoid that accusation.
Zagloba
You make an interesting point, but I think you’re underestimating Obama’s displayed ability to crush the gonads of his opponents when he has them in his grip.
One of the major criticisms is that when he had Anthony Weiner’s nuts in one hand and Jamie Dimon’s in the other, he squeezed the wrong side.
kay
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
But, if that’s the charge, “using Republican narratives” and there’s a defense to that (I’ve seen it here) “he’s not using Republican narratives, he’s doing something else entirely” did you not expect that defense to be raised?
Of course it was. It wouldn’t be much of a debate if your charge “he’s using Republican narratives” was just accepted at face value with no opposing view, among people who debate politics, under some “we’re all on the same page because we all want the same things” theory. We’re not all on the same page, obviously, or the “using Republican narratives” meme would go unchallenged, and we’d all agree he’s guilty, and move on.
CarolDuhart
@gogol’s wife: Thank you a lot.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@Woodrowfan:
Sadly, there are nut jobs in every party.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@Zagloba:
There were a lot of things wrong with LBJ but we got the Space Program and the Civil Rights & Voting Rights Acts because he know whos nuts to crush & when to crush them. The tapes of his phone calls to Southern Senators are almost painful to listen to. There is something to be said for his talent – I don’t think we will ever see that in our modern world.
BTW – I am not suggesting Obama act like LBJ, that is impossible for a number of reasons (this isn’t 1964, Obama does not know where all the bodies are buried, they are very different people) just giving LBJ his due.
Maude
@gogol’s wife:
We who know and love you know it’s not snark.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
On the subject of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – I want to mention something again as it really highlights how different DC is now. I said this before but it got no response.
The filibuster lasted over 2000 hours – that was non-stop, nearly 90 days where the Senate did nothing else. The bastards worked in teams of 3 so they could get some rest when not actively trying to continue the Civil War while the forces of good had to keep 51 Senators on hand at all time to answer quorum calls.
Imagine these weak-willed milquetoasts of today giving up their endless hours of ‘dialing for dollars’ and big buck dinners with lobbyists for 3 months simply to do the right thing.
Linda Featheringill
Presidential speech coming up any moment now.
Dunno what the topic is. Explaining an economic plan, I think, or more on the jobs program.
Linda Featheringill
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
The Civil Rights legislation passed but only after a long and drawn-out fight. Or maybe several fights. Lots of strong feelings on both sides. Lots of bitching on the ground, as I remember it, family fights, etc. Not an easy birth, if I may use that metaphor.
gogol's wife
@Maude:
Thank you! You made my day.
gene108
Obama’s always been personally very popular.
If the economy was better, he’d be on path to face crush any Republican contender in 2012, like Reagan did to Mondale, which would be the death knell for the modern conservatives, much the same way Mondale’s loss in 1984 was for old school liberalism.
Mondale ran on Carter 2.0 and people didn’t want to go back to that. Bush, Jr. is still highly unpopular and the modern crop of Republicans want to take the conservative side of what Bush, Jr. tried to do and ratchet it up a couple of orders of magnitude.
Republicans know they have a recipe for disaster in 2012, IF the economy gets better, which is why they are working so damn hard to make sure it sucks.
MomSense
Yup, the sky is still in the usual place.
Frankensteinbeck
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
Unfortunately, the rules don’t require that anymore. Instead they work more in the reverse, where if the other guy can’t overcome a cloture vote, the filibuster reigns by default.
Upper West
@Admiral_Komack: And yet, the liberal NY Times seemingly every other day, runs “analysis” that “Obama is losing his base”:
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
Agreed.
My take is that progressives should be less critical of the president and more critical of Congress, especially in the Senate. And more energy should be put in state and local politics to prep the next generations of Dems, rather than worrying about top-level national politics.
gene108
@scav:
Obama is A LOT like Reagan. Both Presidents had low approval ratings because of a bad economy, BUT both Presidents had HIGH RATINGS about what people thought about each one as individuals.
If the economy bounces back, like it did for Reagan, look for Obama to destroy any contender in 2012, like Reagan did to Mondale.
sherparick
One context problem with comparative polls like this that the demographics of the electorate has changed substantially over the last 35 year, even over the last 15. In 1979, there were lots of people who identified still as “Democrats” who had voting for Republican Presidential candidates (or George Wallace) from 1968 on, but these folks still loved FDR and the New Deal programs of their youth, just hated hippies and felt nostalgia for what is euphemistically called the racial arrangements pre-1964 Civil Rights Act. These folks were white and were born mostly in the teens, twenties, and thirties. These people are now mostly dead. Their children and grand-children became Evangelical Christians after their wild-oats years and are now called, and call themselves, “Republicans.” And they have been schooled by Rush Limbaugh and their preachers for the last 20 years to believe that the wealthy are God’s chosen, that all that stands between them and prosperity are Environmental wackos and Government support for the underserving, melanin enhanced, poor, and that Government is bad for everything except executions and regulating pregnancy and end-of-life decisions. They are a smaller proportion of voting population, but far more ideological than their parents. Blacks, Hispanics, gays, and hippies (folks like me who believe that a woman gets to make the decision about her body and whether she should bring to term any child residing therein and who does not think that the one True God of the Universes really cares that much about our rather brief, temporal, sex lives).
Tom Q
@gene108: I’ve felt this, too, and it’s amazing how few people seem to see it. It’s solely the economy that’s a drag on Obama’s approvals; with a neutral/somewhat growing economy by this time next year, he’d be unbeatable.
The sad thing is, it seems there are just as many on the left rooting for double-dip recession — to prove how correct they’ve been all along!! — as there are on the right.
Another thing: people say all the time how Obama is too aloof, doesn’t have the personal touch Clinton does. Yet his personal favorability scores are WAY above Clinton’s. You’d think there’d be somebody in our commentariat capable of noticing that.
OzoneR
@John X.:
this is new firebagger meme? Democrats have always sucked?
OzoneR
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
the difference is they CHOSE to filibuster that way, they didn’t have to
gene108
@Tom Q:
Despite all the people Obama’s had a beer with, I don’t think the chattering classes see him as someone, you’d have a beer with, unlike Clinton or Bush, Jr.
Go figure…
lawguy
@Omnes Omnibus: I should not criticize Obama not because I think he is doing well, but because it might hurt his reelection chances?
Elie
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
You seem to like frames that have to do with coercion and singular action by the Executive.
You are not alone. It seems the frame we as a society seem to like… we hear it all the time on sports to other less violent competitive milieus.
Be careful with that, though — if I may suggest. There is an element of Presidential leadersship which is about commmand and control, but also another that has with allowing the vox populi — the nature of democratic self determination by the people, that must also be there. He/She is the representative of the people and that leadership is both pointing the way, shaping, but also sometimes being influenced and helping the people to express that.
That last part has gotten very weak in our country. Too many are disengaged and alienated from a process that they do not feel represents their interests. One of O’s key strengths to me is that he has time after time, used the system faithfully the way its supposed to be used — balanced power between the branches. Tons of folks even in his own party wanted him to resort to a coercive and authoritarian model playing outside the system, but he showed big ones to tough it out and make the Congress do its job. See, people don’t see that as courage. In terms of what is best for upholding our constitutional process, (which as you recall, is part of the oath of office — not do his own thing), that was valiant.
I am sure that you will agree, right? (not)
Elie
@lawguy:
Well, as a practical matter, would you rather make him less popular so that one of the Republican clowns will win?
Your choice.
Elie
@gene108:
The MSM and other chatterers would be too ashamed and self conscious of their behavior to loosen up with Obama. You can only enjoy things when you are comfortable in your own skin with someone. In their cases, they know they are not righteous…makes it hard to relax knowing you havent been straight up.
Anyway, just my take.
Omnes Omnibus
@ lawguy: That is not remotely what I said. Don’t twist my words.