Obama's New Dilemma: Accept Half A Loaf?

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

If President Obama's troubled by the falloff in his popularity since the inauguration, he can perhaps take solace from Ronald Reagan's experience. After riding a tide of popularity into the White House, President Reagan's poll numbers plummeted as the recession he inherited worsened. By late 1982, the nation's jobless claims soared to nearly 11 percent. But after the economy began to rebound the following year, The Gipper's poll numbers also brightened, paving the way for "Morning in America" and a second term.

That's the glass half-full view. Then there's Jimmy Carter, who came into office in 1979 enjoying a wave of post-Watergate support from the public but exited Washington with a 34 percent job approval rating.

Which way now? Little more than halfway into his first year on the job, it's clear that President Obama has reached one of those periodic crossroads we love to point out with 20-20 hindsight years later. The honeymoon is clearly over but if the economic stimulus measures take root and if the president's domestic policy measures pass and if Afghanistan and Iraq turn out well - well, that's already a lot of "ifs" - he may enjoy a bounce in public opinion. He could use one. A notoriously fickle public is already showing its restlessness. To wit:

* Less than half the public now approves of how President Obama is handling the war in Afghanistan, down from 56% in April, according to a new CBS poll.
* 60% of Americans say the president has failed to clearly explain his plans for health care reform, according to a separate CBS poll.

Such is life in the presidential fishbowl. After all the post-inauguration hype, a letdown was guaranteed at some point as no president holds on to a 70% approval rating for long. In fact, pollsters Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen predicted something like this as far back in March, when the president was still thought capable of walking on water.

Picking his spots

Despite grumbling from the left wing of his party, the president can count on strong Democratic support to compensate for nearly-united Republican opposition in Congress against his policies. The worry is how to keep independents. A CNN/Opinion Research poll shows that 53 percent of independents are dissatisfied with the president's overall performance, a decline that's contributed to his weaker public support.

In fact, writes New York Times columnist, David Brooks, "in the history of polling, no newly elected American president has fallen this far this fast. Anxiety is now pervasive. Trust in government rose when Obama took office. It has fallen back to historic lows. Fifty-nine percent of Americans now think the country is headed in the wrong direction."

Brooks, a moderate conservative, argues for a go-slow approach and says that the administration's best bet for rescuing his first term is to retreat from its grander ambitions. Like most Monday morning quarterbacks - especially those offering critiques from the right - Brooks has a hard time believing that big sweeping change is ever going to turn out well. Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard is in the same camp. He offers a gloomy prediction of the administration's chances for moving its agenda through Congress, adding that President Obama has started to "lose the middle" by overreaching.

"...Putting Joe Biden in charge of selling (the stimulus) as a success is proof enough that they didn't understand how important it was for the stimulus to be perceived as something other than a total failure, if not an outright success. But then came cap and trade, and Nancy Pelosi and the Obama administration stood behind the Blue Dogs telling them to advance in the face of withering fire -- and threatening to shoot them in the back if they didn't. Advance they did, but the Senate never picked up the legislation, and it has no serious plans to. The Blue Dogs took a huge risk for nothing."

If the United States is as truly risk-averse as they suggest, then the status quo will prevail. Those arguing that this is the moment for widespread structural change will then have to accept half a loaf and get on with their lives. But what's to guarantee that adopting a Blue Dog agenda will help revive President Obama's popularity either with moderates or Republicans?

In dismissing the Rahm Emanual adage not to waste a crisis by thinking small, the irony is that conservatives are ignoring a triumphant chapter in their own movement's history. It's the same political gospel - albeit under a different byline - that their activists used to help usher in the Reagan Revolution.

[noloyalisti]

A strong government option is already half a loaf. We should have universal single payer like all the other industrialized countries that have better health care systems.

Time to stand up to the robber barons in health care. Take the profit OUT. After that we can take back the rest of the country from the greedy, uncaring, big corporations.

[GuyfromUSA]

So as it turns out we voted for president based on who could BS the best.

[GuyfromUSA]

Obama was done before he got started. He flat out lied during his entire campaign.. What a fiasco.

[slownewsday_5]

Let me ask those who oppose a public OPTION if they support our wars.

Any takers?? 'Cause if you support the wars, you are NOT fiscal conservatives.

Do you think the government has handled the wars correctly, from a fiscal standpoint? No??? Then why would you support the wars, if government fiscal responsibility is your criteria?

I'd like to hear from one person who can justify the expense of the wars we're in.

I am betting no one who supports the wars can answer that.



.

[GuyfromUSA]

I'll give you Iraq however Afghanistan must be fought and mut be won. You think it's pointless. You'll see the ramifications if we don't win or pull out. It will be ugly.

[rightbehind]

No nation that has public health care will give it up. We pay more for health care than any nation on this planet and it's rated 37TH just above Cuba. A country with no natural resources. Democrats better grow a spine and vote public health care straight up or down if they want to remain in charge. They better quit folding to the lobbyist and the less than 1% of the population trying to control the other 99%. Bring on the vote so we can sort the real democrats from the yellow dogs. Democrats grow a spine and show you have courage. You are not going to win by pleasing the people who want to throw you out of office.

[Razzl]

Brooks is entirely wrong. The key for Obama is not to scale back his ambitions, but rather to ram home his agenda on every issue while he has massive Congressional majorities. The Republican policy of obstruction is not likely to change after the 2010 or 2012 elections, so he must make things happen now. It's an old fact of mass psychology that talking success and exuding success creates an aura of inevitability which discourages opposition and builds support. Obama needs to push hard for his agenda as though it were right and inevitable, and he will find the public on his side. It's the dithering that's hurting, not the ideas, which the majority of the public agree with. His poll numbers are down because his followers are expressing disappointment with his lack of certitude in the face of opposition...

[rightbehind]

That's true. Obama needs to take a firmer stance with his party and tell them he'll veto any bill without a public option. That's what we want. Pass or fail we win either way. We will have a list of democrats that vote against public health care to get rid of. Plenty of time to find replacements with only 14 months before the 2010 elections. The timing is perfect. Bring on the vote for public health care!

[rightbehind]

The democrats better grow a spine and vote the public option. The majority of this nation are feed up with the health care system we have. It is responsible for 3 out of 5 bankruptcies in this country. The republicans warned them it was theirs to loose. They don't vote public health care straight up or down many of us will stay home on election day and the republicans just may get their comeback. Give us a vote straight up or down on strong public health care. Pass or fail we'll be there to support the real democrats on election day.

[fstop100]

Old Quote "You can lie to some of the people all the time or lie to all the people some of the time, but you can't lie to all of the people all of the time.

nobama need to take this advise.

[jimmyc1955]

Obama is taking care of the fat cats at the unions, big money on Wall Street and others. He wasn't going to hire lobbists and is administration is now loaded with them. He is holding up a whole bunch of good old boys - so I don't really see a difference - unless you prefer the union fat cats who extort dues from members without permission and spend it as they please without asking the rank and file.

He is still supporting the wars, and still has prisoners in Gitmo.

Frankly - it just might me that the American people didn't want the kind of change that Obama, Pelosi and the hard left have in mind. Polls indicate only 20% of people actually strongly support health care, the cap and trade plan and the bailouts.

Maybe what MOST people wanted was government to stop spending their future - and what we got was one who is spending the next 3 generations futures.

[stryker54]

You'll never get health care under control without first tort reform, but hey, none of the politians what to go up against the lawyers.Most of them are one.