Obama hits 40% approval in AP poll, loses ground on foreign policy

Obamahits40%approvalinAPpoll,loses

PoliticopollshowspublicunimpressedwithHillary’sState

Politico poll shows public unimpressed with Hillary’s State Department performance

posted at 9:21 am on July 21, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Reviews panned Hillary Clinton’s memoir Hard Choices – and critics slammed her book tour even more. Defenders of the presumed Democratic presidential frontrunner claimed that the few weeks of stumbles and gaffes would long be forgotten by the time Clinton ran for President. The same could be said about her tenure at State, according to a new poll from Politico. Only 14% rate her tenure at State as “excellent,” and only 42% give it a positive rating overall:

A majority of voters are unimpressed with Hillary Clinton’s performance as secretary of state, according to a new POLITICO poll.

Just 14 percent described her time at State — she served four years ending in February 2013 — as “excellent,” while 28 percent defined it as “good.” Twenty-one percent called it “fair,” and 32 percent rated her performance “poor.” Six percent weren’t sure or declined to answer. The survey of likely voters in states and districts with the most competitive House and Senate races was conducted this month as Clinton traveled around the country to promote her new memoir, “Hard Choices,” and discuss her time as the nation’s top diplomat.

On the passion scale, that’s bad news indeed. More than twice as many rate her poorly than excellent, and that sustains itself through most demographics, according to Politico. Predictably, Democrats think she’s wonderful and Republicans think she’s horrid, but the real problem for Hillary and the Democrats who want her as the nominee is how she scores among independents:

Yet, in a potential warning sign for Clinton, independents gave her lukewarm marks by a nearly 2-to-1 margin: 60 percent viewed her performance as “fair” or “poor,” compared with just 33 percent who answered “excellent” or “good.”

There may be some who question how a Secretary of State who started off her tenure with the misspelled “reset” button to Russia and ended it with Benghazi could get even that many non-Democrats to consider her performance good or excellent. It’s not a bad question, but it’s a testament to the enduring cachet of the Clinton brand. It might be interesting, or perhaps amusing, if a pollster doing a follow-up survey on Hillary Clinton in this format added an open-ended question for the “excellent/good” responders to name one significant accomplishment of Clinton’s during her four years as America’s top diplomat. If they can name one, they’d do better than some of Hillary’s public defenders.

The Politico poll covers the traditional questions as well. Barack Obama’s job approval/disapproval hits 43/57, and the passion imbalance is even more pronounced. Only 15% strongly approve of Obama’s performance, while 44% strongly disapprove — more than Obama’s overall approval, and almost three times more than those who strongly approve. Republicans now have a 39/32 lead on trust in foreign policy, and a two-point lead in the generic Congressional ballot, 44/42 with leaners and 39/37 without.

On ObamaCare, the popularity of the law pretty much continues in its usual vein. Only 17% like the law as it is, while 45% want it repealed entirely. Another 38% take the in-between position of keeping the law and fixing it, which will give Democrats only a very thin fig leaf going into the midterm elections. The law is deeply unpopular, and if the only thing they can say about it is “I’ll fix what we broke!”, it’s going to be a bleak fall.

Speaking of which, this poll provides yet another reminder that Democrats are mostly offering non-sequiturs for narratives in this electoral cycle. Once again, economic issues are by far and away at the top of voters’ minds. Economy and jobs are the top priority for voters, with 31% combined. Economic inequality is the top concern for … one percent, the lowest specified voter priority on the list. Four percent think the environment is the top priority. Immigration and health care get higher priority than government spending and the national debt, but all of these are in single digits. Contraception doesn’t even make it on the list. The more Democrats talk about income inequality and the “war on women,” the less credibility and relevance they will have in this election cycle.

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: approval rating, Barack Obama, disapproval ratings, hard choices, Hillary Clinton, issues, midterms

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

ObamaapprovalratinglowerthanBush’satthe

Obama approval rating lower than Bush’s at the same point in presidency

posted at 9:21 am on November 6, 2013 by Bruce McQuain

If you recall George W Bush’s 5th year in the presidency, Iraq was still going badly (the surge hadn’t worked yet), the news networks still had a daily count of the dead they featured and we were told that America was tired of war, and especially a war of choice.  And then there was Katrina. We were also told that President Bush was suffering horrendous disapproval numbers, numbers so bad that they would be hard to beat in modern history.

Until today:

When President Obama first ran for the White House in 2008, it was with the promise to turn the page on the presidency of George W. Bush. But for all their political differences, it turns out the American public pretty much view the two men in the same light, according to new polling data.

In the first week of November in the fifth year of their presidencies, Obama and Bush have nearly identical approval numbers, according to the latest Gallup polling.

In fact, Bush comes out one point ahead, 40 percent to 30 percent, respectively.

The Gallup daily tracking poll for November 5^th 2013 puts Obama’s approval at 39 percent, with 53 percent disapproving of his job performance.

By comparison, polling for the first week of November in 2005 had Bush’s approval at 40 percent, with 55 percent disapproving of his job performance.

“By the same light” it seems obvious that the majority of the American people disapproved of both presidents at the same point in their presidency.  But other than that the disapproval comes via different routes.  President Bush was fighting not only an unpopular war, but a negative press and the Democratic party that continually went negative about he and his administration (something they seem to have forgotten since President Obama has taken office).

Obama, on the other hand, has pretty much gotten a free pass on Afghanistan and has had a supportive, almost adoring press that has mostly worked to blunt any criticism of he and his administration, to include any criticism by Republicans.

But despite that, his approval rating is in the toilet.  Why?  That’s the pregnant question, isn’t it?  The answer seems to be “cumulative”.  Over the years, as we’ve gotten to know Mr. Obama, we’ve found we don’t like him as much as we thought we might.  We find he’s petulant and sometimes petty.  We have learned he doesn’t like bad news, doesn’t like to be blamed for anything and when he is he tries to pass the blame off to others.

Or, in other words, we’ve discovered he isn’t much of a leader, not a particularly good politician and seems to have no idea about what he’s doing.  We’ve seen our stock in the world plummet, the economy founder and his signature legislation – ObamaCare – is an unpopular disaster.

You’ll remember that the surge eventually worked in Afghanistan and that Bush’s numbers rallied slightly.  Frankly I see nothing on the horizon that might do the same for Mr. Obama.  Pundits say the government shutdown will hurt Republicans.  But that’s been overshadowed by the ACA debacle.  The economy continues to underwhelm, there are the NSA and IRS scandals, the Russians, Chinese and many others have absolutely no respect for this country’s leadership and Democrats rightly fear the ACA will sink them in 2014 unless it is fixed and fixed quickly.

Whatever you may say about President Bush, he was a leader.  He made the unpopular decision to double down on Iraq and push the surge despite opposition both externally and internally.  Mr. Obama shows no such leadership traits whatsoever.  His is almost an absentee administration with his supposed “hands off” management style (a euphemism for not doing anything).

There seems to be no reason, given the facts of his “governing style” to expect Mr. Obama’s approval numbers to rally anytime soon if at all.

~McQ

Update (Erika): Fixed the typo in the headline from “disapproval” to “approval,” oops!

Tags: Barack Obama, disapproval ratings, George W. Bush

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

ObamadisapprovalratinglowerthanBush’satthe

Obama disapproval rating lower than Bush’s at the same point in presidency

posted at 9:21 am on November 6, 2013 by Bruce McQuain

If you recall George W Bush’s 5th year in the presidency, Iraq was still going badly (the surge hadn’t worked yet), the news networks still had a daily count of the dead they featured and we were told that America was tired of war, and especially a war of choice.  And then there was Katrina. We were also told that President Bush was suffering horrendous disapproval numbers, numbers so bad that they would be hard to beat in modern history.

Until today:

When President Obama first ran for the White House in 2008, it was with the promise to turn the page on the presidency of George W. Bush. But for all their political differences, it turns out the American public pretty much view the two men in the same light, according to new polling data.

In the first week of November in the fifth year of their presidencies, Obama and Bush have nearly identical approval numbers, according to the latest Gallup polling.

In fact, Bush comes out one point ahead, 40 percent to 30 percent, respectively.

The Gallup daily tracking poll for November 5^th 2013 puts Obama’s approval at 39 percent, with 53 percent disapproving of his job performance.

By comparison, polling for the first week of November in 2005 had Bush’s approval at 40 percent, with 55 percent disapproving of his job performance.

“By the same light” it seems obvious that the majority of the American people disapproved of both presidents at the same point in their presidency.  But other than that the disapproval comes via different routes.  President Bush was fighting not only an unpopular war, but a negative press and the Democratic party that continually went negative about he and his administration (something they seem to have forgotten since President Obama has taken office).

Obama, on the other hand, has pretty much gotten a free pass on Afghanistan and has had a supportive, almost adoring press that has mostly worked to blunt any criticism of he and his administration, to include any criticism by Republicans.

But despite that, his approval rating is in the toilet.  Why?  That’s the pregnant question, isn’t it?  The answer seems to be “cumulative”.  Over the years, as we’ve gotten to know Mr. Obama, we’ve found we don’t like him as much as we thought we might.  We find he’s petulant and sometimes petty.  We have learned he doesn’t like bad news, doesn’t like to be blamed for anything and when he is he tries to pass the blame off to others.

Or, in other words, we’ve discovered he isn’t much of a leader, not a particularly good politician and seems to have no idea about what he’s doing.  We’ve seen our stock in the world plummet, the economy founder and his signature legislation – ObamaCare – is an unpopular disaster.

You’ll remember that the surge eventually worked in Afghanistan and that Bush’s numbers rallied slightly.  Frankly I see nothing on the horizon that might do the same for Mr. Obama.  Pundits say the government shutdown will hurt Republicans.  But that’s been overshadowed by the ACA debacle.  The economy continues to underwhelm, there are the NSA and IRS scandals, the Russians, Chinese and many others have absolutely no respect for this country’s leadership and Democrats rightly fear the ACA will sink them in 2014 unless it is fixed and fixed quickly.

Whatever you may say about President Bush, he was a leader.  He made the unpopular decision to double down on Iraq and push the surge despite opposition both externally and internally.  Mr. Obama shows no such leadership traits whatsoever.  His is almost an absentee administration with his supposed “hands off” management style (a euphemism for not doing anything).

There seems to be no reason, given the facts of his “governing style” to expect Mr. Obama’s approval numbers to rally anytime soon if at all.

~McQ

Tags: Barack Obama, disapproval ratings, George W. Bush

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair