Writing in a July 30 article for the New York Times, GQR's Chief Executive Stanley B. Greenberg points out that in general, voters associate Democrats with government more than they do Republicans. This connection, he contends has resulted in a "full blown crisis of legitimacy (that) sidelines Democrats and liberalism."
"Government operates by the wrong values and rules, for the wrong people and purposes, the Americans I've surveyed believe," writes Greenberg. "Government rushes to help the irresponsible and does little for the responsible."
Therefore, when Obama signed his approval to deficit reduction legislation that does not include furthering the tax obligations of the rich; contains no additional funds for jobless benefits at a time of high unemployment; which fails to include a proposed reduction payroll tax rates; and has no actual job-creation elements to it, that's an act guaranteed to generate a "WTF?" response from the middle class and add fuel to middle-class voters' negative perceptions about government.
Moreover, by accepting the absurd premise of a "bi-partisan Super Congress" complete with a turgid minefield of restrictive covenants and upon which Republicans have promised to stack ardent anti-government (i.e. Tea Party) types, Obama has, on his own, placed a straitjacket on the post-debt ceiling domestic agenda of jobs creation and further economic recovery that he must successfully pursue in order to gain a lock on re-election.
The President is obviously smart enough to understand this. Yet so many of the signals gleaned from his approach to the debt ceiling debacle seemed to be the kind that register less with middle class concerns than with the political thought processes of many independents.
Clearly the idea of positioning himself as the pragmatic, "adult in the room" as he did through much of the debate is obviously appropriate Presidential behavior. However, on its own, it is not something that matters to those with a vital interest in the nuts and bolts of the final product. With a late July poll by CNN showing that 60 percent of Americans agreed with Obama's advocacy of a "balanced" approach that would include tax increases as part of any deficit reduction deal, it's likely that most middle-class Americans wouldn't have given a hoot if the President had went ahead and stomped, pouted and held his breath right along with the Tea Party, just as long as when the ink dried, the legislation that emerged was fair, balanced and was based in fiscal reality.
Undoubtedly, Obama is aware of the ample evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, establishing the wrong-headedness of spending cuts and "trickle down" economics as a means of lifting the middle-class or stimulating an economy. If so, it certainly raises questions as to what motivated the President to give credibility to such a mode of irrationality about remedying deficits pervasive only among those diehard supply-siders still holed up in the old David Stockman suite of right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. Indeed, throughout the "crisis," Obama's obsessive pursuit of a "bipartisan solution" was as much an issue for him as was his more appropriate desire for a balanced approach. It was, to say the least, both puzzling and profound.
"You have to wonder if President Obama at some level doesn't want to lead," queried Maureen Dowd in her July 30, New York Times column , "Maybe he just wants to be loved."
Or, the President could also be simply hedging his bets that, despite all this, that at least for now, he has all the love he needs to be easily re-elected. That somehow he believes that his ducks are in order. Perhaps he is wagering that his current poll numbers among certain key voter blocs are sufficient to win and that by staying the course, those numbers can be sustained through the election.
Maybe the President sees something in a series of early polls including one by Gallup showing that 83 percent of liberal Democrats (and 12 percent of conservatives) approve of his job performance. Perhaps in his mind, a percentage that high is an indication that they will all turn out in 2012 despite that same poll showing that among overall voters, his job approval is just 40 percent. If so, it would appear that this President is showing signs of the same kind of disengaged hubris that will wreak havoc on George W. Bush's legacy.
It's worth noting that a 40 percent job approval rating at this point of a presidency is an inconsistent barometer for predicting future outcomes. Jimmy Carter was at 40 percent at around this time in his presidency and lost his re-election bid. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan dropped to the 40 percent level at this point in 1983 but still managed to get re-elected in a landslide. And of course, the notorious "comeback kid" himself, Bill Clinton, saw his numbers sitting at 46 percent at around this point in 1995 yet was easily re-elected.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, George H.W. Bush held a stratospheric 77 percent job approval rating before uttering the infamous pledge that doomed his re-election bid: "Read my lips; no new taxes!"
But if Obama's current overall 40 percent job approval rating can't necessarily be viewed as bad news, other polling data reflects a gloomier picture. A Gallup poll taken during the final week of July showed Obama's approval rating at an all time low among independents -- the very group he has courted since the beginning of his term -- along with moderates and conservative Democrats. Also in late July, the President was trailing quintessential political opportunist, Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania and an August 4, Quinnipiac University Poll showed the President tied with Romney in Florida. Less than a week earlier, Obama led Romney by 5 points in the Sunshine State.
"The President's drop off (in Florida) is huge among independent voters who now disapprove almost 2-1," noted Quinnipiac Polling Institute Assistant Director, Peter Brown.
Meanwhile, as noted by Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center in an August 5, Los Angeles Times article : "People judge an incumbent president on the basis of how well he's performed, and they've consistently told us over the course of Obama's first term that his most important job has been to fix the economy. If people feel no progress has been made, it'll be difficult for him to be reelected."
If, as some have long speculated, Obama's underlying grand strategy from the onset has been to govern as a first-term centrist in order to pull in enough independent voters to ensure his re-election, and to then, as a lame duck, to emerge as the hard-core progressive he really is, that prospect becomes more challenging by the minute.
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