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Late August heat: No letup for Obama
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
08/23/09 2:26 PM EDT
The tide of opinion seems to continue to run against Barack Obama and the Democrats’ health care bills. This seems apparent, for example, in this excellent article by Jonathan Martin in Politico on Congressman Allen Boyd’s town meetings. It is apparent in pollster Scott Rasmussen’s daily tracking, which shows 27% strongly approving Obama’s performance and 41% strongly disapproving. And note these very negative responses on an aol.com online poll: 78% say they do not believe Obama will make the right decisions for the country and 66% rate his job performance as poor, with another 15% fair. Obviously this is not representative of the general public. But so far as I know the aol.com website does not have an audience that tilts far to the right. The inference I draw is that those opposed to Obama and his health care plans are much more highly motivated to click on the poll than those on his side.
In response, Obama recalls those several weeks last August and September when he was not doing particularly well in the polls, when he seemed flatfooted in response to the selection of Sarah Palin and when he came out behind after the two parties’ national conventions. Obama makes the point that he adhered to his long-term strategy and ended up doing just fine in November.
A fair point, and consistent with Obama’s tendency to adopt and stick to long-term strategies, a course that often works very well for politicians. But it’s still not apparent how Obama will get the balance of enthusiasm, so positive for him in 2008, to work in his favor this year. This lead article from today’s Washington Post tells how a high-ranking Obama organizer is attempting to stir up enthusiasm in Racine, Wisconsin, which Obama carried 53%-46% in November 2008—exactly his national average. The organizer and his pals don’t seem to be having much success.
Curiously, the article does not mention that Racine County is in the congressional district represented by Republican Paul Ryan, ranking minority member on the Budget Committee and co-sponsor of an interesting health care plan which is one of the few Republican alternatives on offer.
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