President Barack Obama isn’t blaming his record-low poll numbers on the scandals that have plagued his second term and the disastrous Obamacare implementation. Instead, the president is playing the race card, saying his approval ratings are low because some Americans “don’t like the idea of a black president.”
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The New Yorker’s David Remnick sat down with President Obama for a 17,000-word profile detailing the ups and downs of what has been a rocky start to the president’s second term. The president has watched his approval ratings plummet amid a bevy of scandals and a nonfunctioning health insurance marketplace. But, according to Obama, his falling poll numbers stem from opinions about his race, not job performance.
“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President,” Obama told Remnick. “Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black President.”
Since Obama’s reelection in November 2012, his administration has been rocked by controversies including revelations of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups and the Department of Justice’s wide-sweeping seizure of Associated Press journalists’ phone records. Then, the president’s signature law, the Affordable Care Act, rolled out with a website rife with system failures and reports of millions receiving cancellation notices from health insurance companies — which was guaranteed by Obama not to happen.
Remnick describes Obama’s election as “one of the great markers in the black freedom struggle” and notes the disparity in white voters who cast a ballot for President Obama on Election Day in 2012.
“In the electoral realm, ironically, the country may be more racially divided than it has been in a generation,” he writes. “Obama lost among white voters in 2012 by a margin greater than any victor in American history.”
According to the most recent Gallup poll, Obama’s approval rating sits at 40 percent. Fifty-two percent disapprove of the job the president is doing.
Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer, however, refuted Obama’s claim of his race being the key factor in his falling poll numbers.
“Poll after poll makes it very clear that Obamacare and other job-killing policies are the reason,” Spicer told Bloomberg.
In a statement on her Facebook page, 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin responded to President Obama’s assertion of race serving as the primary reason for his falling poll numbers.
Palin posted the famous quote from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in which he outlined his hopes for “a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
“Mr. President,” Palin wrote, “in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and all who commit to ending any racial divide, no more playing the race card.”
This post has been updated to include new information.
