For the first time in his Presidency, President Obama's approval rating has dropped below the 50% mark. The change is noted as coming from a drop in the way noncollege-educated white voters view the President's accomplishments (or lack there of). As the economy takes time to rebound, this segment of voters is feeling that, apparently, the President could have done more. And it is hard to blame these voters when the theme of the Obama campaign was "Change we can believe in".
While the theme definitely aided in getting Obama elected, it may prove to backfire when it comes time for the 2012 election. Granted we are barely near a year into the Obama administration and it can be argued that it is not enough time to solve the problems that the administration faces, but this doesn't mean the voting population will give me the benefit of doubt. The health care talks have met a brick wall, the economy is responding slowly, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aren't scheduled to possibly end until very near the election cycle (and that is IF they find a solution). If Obama doesn't actually change anything by the time the election cycle creeps up, it is likely his original (and very successful) campaign theme will become a rallying cry for the opposition.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/04/obama.approval.poll/index.html
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I personally am not surprised by this news. We could only expect that this would happen sooner or later. The President faces a great number of issues and it is no wonder that he has been unable to tackle all of them in his short tenure as President. I think most of us realized that his campaign slogan couldn’t be taken as fact. However, as the article specified, the major reason for this decrease is due to the opinion of less educated voters. I’m still confident that we will see some good changes come from the Obama administration; after all, he has time before he needs to start worrying about reelection.
ReplyDeleteThe news doesn't surprise me either. News programs still seemed surprised (as does much of the population) that employment numbers always have a lagging effect when trying to determine the economic turn around of any decline.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I can't agree that the campaign slogan couldn't be taken as fact. The theme was very straight forward and many of his stances on issues involved a change from the status quo. While the changes do reflect a decline from uneducated voters, they still have a voice in any future election. It is still early but at this moment Obama is severely lacking on anything to call back to for a future campaign (although its only a matter of time before the economy turns around and he can take responsibility for that).