Published on Sep 05 2009,Page 9 Shortest honeymoon ever S Rajagopalan
While grieving for Teddy Kennedy and `end of Camelot', Americans this week are wondering whether Barack Obama, the latest embodiment of that mystique, is already a fading hope What goes up must come down. Barack Obama may well be pondering over that old maxim as he vacations on the picturesque Martha's Vineyard Island in Massachusetts. Till not long ago, the first American Black President's job approval ratings were at stratospheric levels. It is unclear if the customary political honeymoon is dissipating a trifle too soon, but the fact is his ratings have been plummeting over the past month or two. RealClearPolitics, the popular American website that keeps tabs on polls and politicos on a daily basis, tells you that Obama's ratings at the end of his first seven months in office are now down to 51.8 per cent -- from a peak of 63.3 per cent when he assumed office in January. This is on the basis of an average of five different opinion polls, conducted by Gallup, Washington Post/ABC News, NBC News, Pew Research and Rasmussen Reports. Obama took over in the midst of a deepening recession with Wall Street bleeding, the housing crisis far from over, financial institutions struggling, companies laying off workers in thousands and small businesses collapsing across the country. Yet, he managed to hold his own in the first five months, during which there was just a 4 per cent drop in his approval ratings. In contrast, the past two months have seen an erosion of nearly 8 percentage points, giving rise to palpable disquiet in the Democratic circles. Much to the chagrin of Democrats, Republican George W Bush was better placed after his first seven months in the White House. At this point in 2001, Bush enjoyed a 56 per cent approval rating. But then, he did not have to contend with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The only problem at the start of his eight-year tenure was the controversy surrounding his own election, thanks to the questionable electoral procedures in Florida and the legal challenge in its wake. It is another matter that Bush left office this January as one of the most unpopular presidents in history with a final approval rating of just 22 per cent in a CBS/New York Times poll. For the administration, the first bearer of bad tidings was last week's Washington Post/ABC News poll. Its conclusion: "Public confidence in President Obama's leadership has declined sharply over the summer, amid intensifying opposition to healthcare reform that threatens to undercut his attempt to enact major changes to the system." It found that the number of Americans confident about Obama making the right decisions is down to 49 per cent from 60 per cent at the 100-day mark in his presidency. "As challenges to Obama's initiatives have mounted over the summer, pessimism in the nation's direction has risen: Fifty-five per cent see things as pretty seriously on the wrong track, up from 48 per cent in April." Curiously enough, what is doing Obama in even more than the economic situation is his determined push for healthcare reforms. The wave of protests at town hall meetings by Democratic lawmakers on this issue over the past month have pitted those with satisfactory health insurance cover against those who don't have it. Several senators and Congressmen have been heckled, prompting lawmakers to assure the protesters that they would take back to Washington their strong feelings on the issue. As the Post survey brought out, Obama faces an increasingly polarised environment as he campaigns for his healthcare initiative. Fifty per cent of those surveyed have voiced their opposition to the set of proposals being pursued by the President and Congressional Democrats, with only 45 per cent supporting them. All that puts a question mark on the final shape that Obama's pet project would take. For now, the White House appears firm on giving the people a public option plan, instead of subjecting them to the whims of the powerful health insurance companies, who have become a law unto themselves. Though the spotlight right now is on healthcare, the hard economic issues are very much on the front burner. Official reports may be sanguine that recession is gradually on the wane, but they all admit that the unemployment situation may worsen before it gets better. From the current 9.4 per cent, unemployment is projected to climb to 10 per cent by year-end. Then, there is the revised White House projection of the federal deficit of $9 trillion over the next 10 years, up by as much as $2 trillion estimated in May. The deficit for this year alone is pegged at $1.58 trillion -- the highest since World War II. On the face of it, Obama himself is not unduly bothered about the declining poll numbers. Last week, he told volunteers of "Organising for America", a grassroots organisation committed to his agenda of change: "Just remember we've been through this before. Some of you were involved when we were in Iowa, 30 points down, and all of Washington said, oh, it's over." Obama saw the same story play out last August, when Republican John McCain put up Sarah Palin as his running mate and the talk was "Obama's lost his mojo. As he put it, "There's something about August going into September -- where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up." But political guru Charlie Cook is emphatic that Obama's approval slide to about 51 per cent is evidence that "the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats". His Cook Political Report Congressional model indicates Democrats will lose a net six to 12 seats in 2010, but his own sense is that this is far too low if macro-political dynamics was factored in. "That all of this is happening against a backdrop of an economy that appears to be rebounding and a resurgent stock market underscores how much the President's and his party's legislative agenda have contributed to these poor poll numbers," Cook says. Republican consultant Joseph Pounder regards the turn of events as both surprising and rejuvenating for Obama's political opponents. "It's been a real bad summer for a White House that was supposed to rock everyone's world," Pounder told the Washington Times. But Obama's Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton says the administration has long recognised that it could see dents in the President's support on such a potentially divisive initiative as healthcare reform. If this had been an easy matter, it would have gotten done long ago, Burton says, employing a pet Obama line. While the approval ratings of both President Obama and his Democratic Party have gone down, the Republicans have neither gained nor lost. They remain at a steady 40 per cent, even as the favourability of Democrats has slipped from 62 per cent in January to 59 per cent in April to 49 per cent now. What does this mean? According to Eugene Robinson, the Washington Post columnist, it simply means that the Republican efforts to "obstruct, delay, confuse, stall, distort and otherwise impede the reform agenda that Americans voted for last November have had measurable success". It also means that having secured a comprehensive mandate, the Democrats "don't really know how to use it". (The writer is The Pioneer's Washington correspondent) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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