GOP congress at 12%. Obama at 39%. President would be higher if WH advisors STOPPED appeasing GOP

[blm]

(a GOP whose policies have been failing the nation for decades) and would stick with BASIC Democratic policy fixes.

That's why Obama was hired in the first place - as the person MOST LIKELY to reverse Bush's policies. Instead we are STILL living with Bush's economic policies because of the GOP's success for 3 years in blocking all Democratic fixes to the economy. The GOP are dug in to protect Bush's policies. The spokespeople for the WH can't even articulate that simple fact to the public in fear of admitting they have been ineffective in overturning Bush policy. THEY are the ones afraid to go to battle over policy.

Obama needs some courageous people in that WH. In football, it's called a FRONT LINE. Obama will become the Kenny Anderson of the WH: Great talent and skills....NO FRONT LINE.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Agree.

He also needs to know he can throw the ball farther then five yards.

[frazzled]

2. I think your numbers are a bit off

The most recent CBS poll does give Congress an overall job approval rating of 12%.

The most recent job approval ratings for the president, depending on the poll, range from 43-45%. (see Polling Report: http://www.pollingreport.com/obama_job.htm). I believe the 39% you are talking about was the number who approved of the President's job on the economy in a recent poll, not overall job approval.

All that said, the president seems to be viewed a lot better than anyone else. Everything's relative.

[blm]

3. The point is that WH advisors fear a GOP congress with only 12% approval and THAT is why O's number

is lower than it should be at 39%.

[EffieBlack]

5. I don't think they fear the Republicans

I think they know that their own party in Congress is a big part of the problem. They talk a lot of stuff, but when the rubber hits the road, they don't do a thing to help him - and, in fact, try to undermine his efforts.

This isn't about approval ratings. It's about what can actually get through Congress and Republicans aren't the only people blocking him there, as we see by the reaction of numerous Dems to the jobs plan they kept demanding he send them.

[Doctor_J]

22. WHy would Dems support Obama when they know he'll give everything away

at the end? My God, the president himself - the leader of the Democratic Party - put Social Security and Medicare cuts on the table. He's the one who proposed those ideas. Is it a wonder the party is in collapse?

[EffieBlack]

4. And imagine how much higher his numbers would be if more Congressional Dems had his back

A significant number of them undercut him at every opportunity, yet blast him for not doing or being effective enough. And they - at least so far - get away with it, watching from the sidelines as the President takes all of the flak and the heat for not getting more ambitious plans through a Congress in which members of his own party won't lift a finger to help him.

It's long past time to start calling out those Democrats who want to have it both ways. The President has put them on Front Street with his jobs plan. They demanded that HE send them something and he did. And now several of them are running away from it or hacking away at it, sounding more like Republicans than anything resembling a Democrat.

I hope this latest round helps people better understand some of the obstacles the President is facing in getting anything done - and it's not an inability or unwillingness to stand up to an obstructionist Republican Party. Congressional Democrats are a big part of the problem, as we can all now see clearly.

[Vicar In A Tutu]

8. Indeed. Democrats have already scuppered the jobs bill

even if by some miracle the GOP agree to it. Only an imbecile would think someone like Sanders would get more done than Obama. You have to live in the real world, and the fact of the matter is that a huge chunk of the Democratic party isn't left-wing enough to pass a lot of Obama's legislation, let alone stuff that that would be a real dream for most liberals.

[Doctor_J]

20. What's also strange is that the ones who support him are the same ones he despises

Despite his continual attempts to appease the Repukes and right-wing Dems, they hate his guts and undercut him at every turn. Meanwhile the liberals like Sanders, who Obama never even throws a bone, still support him. The prez has a critical case of battered spouse syndrome, and it may well cost him re-election.

[DrDan]

6. President would be higher if the President STOPPED appeasing GOP

[treestar]

7. How do you know?

The causes for the low approval of Obama right now? With the average voter, it's more likely to be just the vague negative vibes they get from the media, the blue dogs, the left and the pundits. A bandwagon thing.

[blm]

10. Any or all of those still points a finger at WH spokespeople and advisors unable/unwilling to

protect Obama and/or Democratic principles.

[treestar]

15. Pointing fingers does nothing to ask the people who disapprove

why they do. For all we know they disapprove because they think he is too liberal. Or just because they've heard about how he is "weak" from zillions of pundits and blogs.

[RandomKoolzip]

11. No one listens to the left. So it's not our fault.

It's the media constantly telling people he's unpopular (i.e. self-fulfilling prophecy); it's the joblessness and the feeling that the world is hurtling toward something terrible while Obama just seems impotent to do anything (and YES, I know why he can't do anything, you don't have to restate it for me...perception, even if false, counts for a lot with the average voter) about it.

Obama's unpopularity on the left doesn't register with the average voter, so our slings and arrows don't matter. No one gives a fuck about the left. We're invisible, unrepresented, and irrelevant.

[treestar]

14. You sound like quite the victim

And think the left should flourish and its ideas prosper on their own, without effort from the left. That's what I get from that post. I mean how can you continue to be irrelevant if you get your ideas out there and sell them?

[Doctor_J]

19. Get them out there and sell them how?

we have no media presence, and almost no representation in congress, and none in the white house. You are just promoting the same "right wingers are poor, misunderstood, and hated by the media" line that we hear from all of Big Media every day. And like all of the right wingers, you contradict yourself every time you try this canard - "You're causing the trouble for the president", and simultaneously, "you don't matter because you're too meek"

[treestar]

24. Every political group started out without all that

You're being hopeless. Why bother to try to sell our ideas or convince people they are right because we have no access to the media no rep in Congress and none in the WH! How can you get any of that without selling the ideas at the grass roots? It's not going to happen out of thin air or just be a gift.

[Doctor_J]

12. Those are the same

your post is dumb. The vague negative vibes coming from the left are because he repeatedly appeases the much-despised Repukes in Congress. So stop trying to blame us.

[treestar]

13. Take responsibility for it or quit doing it

Besides, OP has not proven the cause of the disapproval.

[Doctor_J]

21. up thread you said we don't have any effect because we don't push our ideas strongly enough

now here you say we're the ones who are doing all the damage to Obama. Is cognitive dissonance the result of being a right winger, or is it the other way around?

[treestar]

23. No I put several causes

the right wing media, etc. You can read it there.

And yet we still have no real discussion of any support for the concept that it is the failure to go to the left that causes the disapproval. If it does, then you are relevant. That's how dumb your post is.

[former9thward]

9. Your OP is wrong.

It is not a "GOP Congress" and that is not what the poll question was. It said "Congress". Congress is made up of the House which is controlled by the GOP and the Senate which is controlled by the Democrats. Congress is both parties or neither depending on how you look at it.

[Recursion]

16. Yes, I'm aware that's the DU fantasy

As somebody who works in and with politics I don't think that

A) Obama has "appeased" Republicans in any real sense
B) the public would like him to be angry on TV more

[blm]

17. Are Bush's tax cuts extended in any real sense? I don't think Obama wanted that to happen, but his

advisors talked him into it given their own lack of courage. End result is that this nation has STILL been living under Bush's economic policies, though GOP gets away with blaming Obama nearly every day with no pushback.

The 'budget deal' that defied convention gave Boehner 98% of what he asked for, as per Boehner. I don't think Obama wanted that to happen like it did, either, but his team provides no FRONT LINE.

Of course, this is MY opinion based on MY observations of the last 3 years.

[Imajika]

18. Congress's approval rating doesn't matter in this environment...

Of course it's low. We have a terrible economy, people are unhappy and Republicans hate Congress because Democrats run half of it, and Democrats hate Congress because Republicans run half of it.

People need to stop grasping at straws and thinking Obama being more popular than Congress actually means anything. If the Congressional approval numbers equaled Republican approval, then the GOP would not be able to win in NYC or crush our candidate in Nevada by 22 points.

The ONLY polls that actually matter are Obama's approval rating and the generic R/D ballot.

[win_in_06]

25. For some reason those numbers didn't help in NY9.

And the GOP candidate took the Obama administration head-on.