Obama Nears 100: Average Approval & Ultra-Polarizing

[underpants]

Source: Real Clear Politics

As he approaches the 100th day of his presidency, Barack Obama's public approval stands in the middle of the ten presidents who preceded him, based on an extensive analysis of historic Gallup polling.

Obama's standing is as remarkable as it is distant from the grand expectations that greeted him on Inauguration Day. Obama has indeed earned historically lofty support from his base. But the historically paltry support from his political opposition keeps Obama well short of the more popular presidents of less partisan eras.

The president who campaigned on "turning the page" will hit his 100th day in the same black and white standing as George W. Bush. Obama may in fact cross the milestone as the most polarizing president of the modern era.

Obama will come to that milestone a more popular president than his two recent predecessors. He will also be short, on mean and median, of the public standing of half the presidents' since Dwight Eisenhower. Ike was the first president that Gallup repeatedly polled over the first 100 days.

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/23/obama_nears_100_average_approval__ultra-polarizing___96141.html

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Uh..... uh-huh


Obama's popular, but no JFK

The bar is 65. That's the average 100-day approval rating for the ten presidents between 1953 and 2009. Obama will likely be narrowly underachieving when the milestone comes to pass, perhaps earning 63 percent. That would place Obama between Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter in the public's view.

[godai]

1. 73% approval is OK by me.

http://people-press.org/report/509/obama-at-100-days

They can keep trying to invent new statistical measures but, so far, so good.

[high density]

2. What a hilarious interpretation

Same black and white standing, except considering it's the complete opposite situation! Bush's 25% support has now flipped to a 25% oppose for Obama. What a big surprise there.

[underpants]

3. More. Yes this is wild crazy stuff

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=132

[sinkingfeeling]

4. They're saying more Republicans hate him than Democrats did Bush.

[liberal N proud]

5. That is doubtful

Even taking into consideration the racism of the republican party, I think our hatred for bu$h was way more powerful. Only the next election will tell though.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. This is the second poll out with that statistic. From the above link:

"Obama may be the most partisan 100-day president of the modern era, but only by a hair's margin. Obama's partisan gap averages 60 percentage points. Bush was the most partisan modern president at 57 points. Clinton closed his first 100 days with a 51-point gap. The partisan gap is the margin between the high approval of a president's political base and the low approval of the opposition party."

[droidamus2]

9. Another view

Is this so much an indictment of Obama being polarizing (personally I think it's a useless stat) or an indication of the Republican party and its supporters veering so far to the right that anybody left of Genghis Khan is considered a liberal/progressive and therefore 100% unsupportable?

[mvd]

10. The guy in the article even mentions it

"It's likely more moderate Republicans who remain. That would leave a more conservative party to gauge the new president."

This, though, after already bashing Obama for being polarizing. And his numbers on independents later are also iffy.

[Igel]

13. However, it's a view that can be applied consistently.

Was the polarization under * an indictment of *'s being polarizing (presumably also a useless stat) or an indication of the Democratic Party and its supporters...?

I've seen lots of people interpret the same kinds of evidence in one way when it made them look good (* was polarizing, polarization bad, dems good) and a different way when it suited them (polarization is meaningless, repubs bad). The key is to use the same kind of interpretation when there aren't compelling reasons to do otherwise (apart from self-image, agenda, partisanship, etc.).

[high density]

15. Repukes are increasingly falling off the deep end

Obama cannot be to blame for their 'Muslin' teabag birth certificate fascist socialist bullshit.

[underpants]

21. Don't forget his overwhelming teleprompter powers

I mean just to keep it honest

[SlingBlade]

6. Bull Shit " same black and white standing as George W. Bush"

[mvd]

8. Um, no one was more polarizing than Bush

Complete manipulation of the statistics by RCP.

[Posteritatis]

19. Compare our post-2001 craziness with their post-2008 craziness

Sanity's gone straight out the window on the right, by both our and their standards. They're more into apocalyptic end-times we're-all-doomed-unless mode than they were for Clinton, or than most of the left was for Bush at most points. Just look at the language being used, not just by the populace at large, but by Congressmen and the works.

I would say things are more polarized now. Substantially more. There's very few people who have any kind of middle-ground views of Obama (or the administration in general), while there were certainly more for large swathes of Bush's administration.

[ryanmuegge]

30. Which is funny because Obama is such a middle-of-the-road figure in terms of substance.

He just happens to give great speeches.

[madmom]

11. Well of course they will say he is more polarizing, because they are making

him that way.With all the msm spouting off right-wing talking point 24/7 anything Obama has to say will be polarizing. DUH!

[primavera]

20. Well said

The reality is that we live in an extremely polarized time. Before Obama was even elected, Repukes were describing him as a socialist (as if that were a negative thing, or even an honor that Obama had earned) and they haven't stopped chanting that since. There's no effort whatsoever being made to impartially gauge the merits of Obama as an administrator. In this respect, Obama is completely superfluous - the right-wing would be saying the same thing about Hillary or about anyone else. They're far too busy trying to distract the public from the catastrophic failures of their policies of the last eight years by employing their standard strategy of the best defense is a good offense. They've got too much shouting to do to be bothered paying attention to any actual facts. So of course the political climate is heavily charged and polarized, what else would one expect? To suggest that that condition has anything to do with Obama personally or his administrative abilities is just silly, because none of his detractors are paying the slightest attention to him; he's just the dart board as far as the Repukes are concerned.

[Still Sensible]

12. Yeah, this is RCP's predictably RW spin on the numbers

Real Clear Politics leans quite significantly right. Most other media reporting these poll results are not nearly as negative in their take.

Truth is, as polarizing as presidential politics has become in the last 16 years--coupled with the way the RW and FR nutjob megaphone has been throwing everything but the kitchen sink, Obama's numbers right now are nothing short of remarkable IMHO.

[mvd]

16. Agreed

And really, Obama only seems to have been polarizing mainly against wingnuts. With moderate Repukes being split and some on the left disapproving because they aren't pragmatic. Even if Obama had ruled out prosecuting higher-ups, I would have DISapproved of him. I consider disapproving a grade below C.

[mvd]

17. Meant "wouldn't have" disapproved

[NYC Liberal]

14. Now THAT'S spin! Obama isn't popular because he isn't liked by Republicans!

At least the mental gymnastics required to accept that as legitimate might give both their brain cells some exercise.

[gratuitous]

18. Yeah, polarizing; I hear that a lot

The gap between approval ratings scores Democrats, who have largely held their own during the worst Republican excesses and gained numbers in the last 10 years, and Republicans, who have lost membership, leaving a rump party of bitter dead-enders. So yeah, when you examine the difference between a largely supportive electorate at large with a smaller and smaller group of people newly on the outs, you're going to find a rather sizable gap. You can call it "polarizing," but it's not necessarily so.

However, it makes a neat and tidy narrative and feeds into the middle school mentality of so many of the popular media reporters, so we've got our tiresome, gossipy, and wrong story to be dinned in our ears for the rest of the Obama administration.

[superconnected]

22. I don't trust the survey.

[regnaD kciN]

28. Neither do I...

RCP is known as a right-wing outfit.

[superconnected]

23. Let's not forget that Obama has to deal with something JFK did not - racists.

And JFK was before the Nixon administration where everything became ultra polarized.

[Psephos]

26. Read up on how vicious and conspiracy-infested the anti-Catholic bigotry was back then...

...you might want to modify your opinion.

Here are two sources:

Theodore Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 9- 17

Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1988), pp. 258-61.

[regnaD kciN]

29. Yes and no...

There was anti-Catholic bigotry in some areas of the country. But, by the same token, the G.O.P., although led by Nixon in 1960, hadn't yet developed the instinct for trying to radically divide the country 50.1% to 49.9% through fear and anger they way they did a decade later under Nixon, Agnew, Buchanan, Attwater, and Rove.

[DLnyc]

24. RealClearPolitics. . . Gallup? If Obama does okay with them, he's doing great.

Gallup is deeply skewed towards republicans.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5425020

They consistently polled Bush as higher approval than everyone else, now they've suddenly switched to polling Obama lower than everyone else does. Go figure.

[Canuckistanian]

25. Polarizing? GMAFB.

A left-handed diabetic gibbon would be "polarizing" according to those idiots.

[Kablooie]

27. It's the Republicans that are polarizing, not Obama. They reject ANYONE who isn't Republican.