The nasty presidential primary race that is driving up the disapproval rates of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton is having the opposite effect on President Obama, whose approval numbers have reached the highest level since his re-election nearly four years ago.
At least three new polls, led by Gallup, put Obama over 50 percent approval, with the latest Democracy Corps survey pegging his approval rating at 54 percent, equal to what he was at on Election Day 2012.
The trend, if it holds, should be a huge benefit to the Democrats in the fall election, providing a political coattail for the battered Clinton.
Pollsters and analysts interviewed by the Washington Examiner agree that Obama’s surge, which began at the end of last year, isn’t due to anything he’s done. Instead, both Democrats and Republicans agree that he simply looks better than Trump or Clinton.
“What you’re watching here is that the context of the political discourse to succeed him has been so bad that even he looks good,” said Republican pollster David Winston. His latest poll has Obama at 51 percent approval to 46 percent disapproval.
Pollster John Zogby agreed, adding that there is a bit of voter “nostalgia” for the president’s first term as Obama works through his last year.
“One measure of political approval is ‘compared to whom.’ Obama offers civility when increasingly in both parties, ‘civility’ looks like a dirty word,” said Stephen Hess, the presidential scholar and author at the Brookings Institution.
Zogby said that reaching an approval rating of a little over 50 percent is, and will be, the new normal for presidents in the politically divided America. “It can’t get much better, and few people get a chance to do that,” he said, noting that Obama’s approval is higher than George W. Bush’s when he left office and also higher than Gallup’s average presidential approval rating.
“With the country like this, the president wakes up in the morning and at least 42 percent hate his guts. So there’s not much room or maneuverability here, so yes, 50 percent is the new 60 percent,” he added.
The University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato said a resurgent Obama can help Democrats at the polls.
“There ought to be more attention to Obama’s job approval number, because if he keeps it over 50 percent, that is a big boost to the Democrats in November,” he said.
“I think his higher job approval is a combination of steady, good — but not great — economic conditions combined with the deep division and controversy that is apparent in the Republican contest to replace Obama,” he said.
Sanctions pushed to punish sex abuse by U.N. peacekeepers
A leading congressional champion of human rights is eyeing sanctions and “huge fines” on key United Nations members such as France whose peacekeeping troops have been linked to rape and sexual abuse of those they are tasked to protect, including boys as young as nine.
Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican and author of several human rights initiatives, told the Examiner that he plans to push for sanctions against countries and United Nations bureaus tied to abuse.
“One way is assessing troop-sending countries, when they have abusers, a huge fine to the country,” said Smith, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee chairman, who last week held a three-hour hearing on U.S. troop abuses.
“Naming and shaming only goes so far. Just put them on a list, and they say, ‘Hit me again,'” he added.
Smith’s hearing was one of the first to draw attention to abuse by peacekeepers in war zones. Even according to the United Nations, said Smith, “These contacts occurred with sickening frequency, and many involve girls under the age of 18, with some as young as 11.”
A former U.N. inspector general added that he probed the sexual abuse of “boys as young as nine” by French troops.
The CIA’s favorite restaurant
A new book about former CIA Director David Petraeus’ career-ending sex affair and the personal damage to a family friend reveals an interesting secret: Agency bosses have a favorite downtown Washington restaurant.
Jill Kelley’s appropriately titled Collateral Damage reports that CIA directors even have a designated table and chair at the white tablecloth Prime Rib Restaurant on K Street.
Kelley said that after the former Afghan war hero was named to the CIA in 2011, she and hubby Scott had dinner there with Petraeus and his wife, Holly.
The steakhouse, she writes, “has a history with former directors. We sat at the ‘director’s table,’ Number 55, and David sat in the big armchair known as the ‘director’s chair.'”
Her book makes the case that she was smeared in the probe of Petraeus and mistress Paula Broadwell when the FBI leaked her friendly emails, leading to a media frenzy and wrongful suggestions she had relations with the retired Army general.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
