Only three people on twitter have more followers than President Obama

[cali]

7. true.

so is the President's recent slide in the polls.

Racism doesn't explain why Obama's approval rating is falling

<snip>

We all know that there's a certain proportion of the electorate that's not going to support Obama because he's black. Obama lost the white vote in 2012, according to the final pre-election Pew Research poll. In the south, with its long history of racism, Obama lost the white vote by an astounding 39pt. Compare that to the rest of the country where he didn't lose the white vote in any other region by more than 9pt.

<snip>

What needs to be pointed out, however, is that most of Obama's current approval slide likely isn't because of racism. There's no way to know that for sure, but a recent piece by Jamelle Bouie points to a rough method for knowing.

Compare how Obama's approval changed between now and just before the election. We can examine how his support in different regions of the country has shifted in the polling. If Obama's fall is because white voters can't stand Obama because of his race, then we'd expect the sharpest fall to be among southern whites.

The latest Pew poll shows that not to be the case. Pew has consistently been one of the best pollsters out there, so I trust their numbers. They break down the vote by region and race.

<snip>

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/11/barack-obama-approval-rating-not-racism

Poll: President Obama nears all-time low
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/obama-approval-rating-poll-94659.html