I think you are a bit optimistic and if a public option passes it will spell the doom for the Democrat majorities in congress.
For what reason? The public option has very strong support from the public - over 70% when the question is worded as a "medicare like option" (which is exactly what it will be.) And support for the public option will be even higher once it's actually available and regular people like being able to get health insurance they can really count on at a lower price. Once they realize in the real world all of the right wing scare tactics are meaningless nonsense. Remember, the right wingers used all of the same scare tactics re: medicare and how popular is that program now? If a robust public option passes the the Democratic party (there is no "Democrat" party BTW) will get all of the credit for it and I think they will likely keep a majority in the congress for a very long time (as long as the economy also does well, as the economy tends to trump everything.) The Gallup #s are the real numbers. They are the way we've been judging Presidential approval for about 70 years. It makes no sense to use some other number that has no relation to history. The Gallup #s have a history. No incumbent President has ever lost with a Gallup approval rating at 50% or higher. Obama has yet to fall under 50%. I think it's clear why I see that as being promising. Obviously Obama's numbers fell from where they were at early in his Presidency, that was bound to happen with the economy still being so tough on so many people and with all of the scare tactics the right wing is using (especially in regards to health care.) But all of the yapping will backfire when people realize: Hey... things aren't actually that bad. In fact, they're getting a lot better under Obama. We have health care we can afford and that we can actually count on. The economy is starting to work for everyone, not just the very rich. Yeah... and he doesn't seem "radical" at all. See, in the long run (by 2012) these right wing attacks are going to look increasingly ridiculous and out of touch with reality. Obama looks at the big picture. He did it with health care reform and it looks like we're now very close to getting the real health care reform our country needs so badly. I'm not celebrating yet, but if he manages to pull this off... something we've been needing for 60 years... then that will be an historic accomplishment and it will hopefully be a sign of many more reforms to come!
Zibby, Obama has been under 50% approval for quite some time. Face reality. Even the kool-aid drinkers are starting to falter.
His source is the GOP lie factory. My source is the standard for Presidential approval ratings for the last 70 years: Obama at 55% approval today. I stick with comparing apples to apples. Sure I could cherry pick some polls where Obama has higher approval ratings. For example he's at 56% in Research 2000 and 57% in the ABC/WashPost Poll but I think it makes most sense to use the poll that has been the standard for many years rather than to go looking for numbers that fit with what I want the results to be. If you're not looking at things realistically then you're just deluding yourself. This is what many Republicans are doing now, they are in their echo chamber telling each other that everyone hates President Obama but that's not the truth. Most Americans are well aware that the majority of the problems in this country are directly related to Republican "leadership" during the Bush admin.
Zib don't care, he's the kind of guy that would talk about the virtues of socialism during an AA meeting.
He's not going to give you answer. But most likely he's looking at the Rasmussen poll because it's the one that most closely gives him the results he's looking for. Of course that's because Rasmussen is a Republican leaning poll that overestimates Republicans to give the results that their audience (Rasmussen is often a guest on the Fox network) wants. Rasmussen has no interest in getting accurate results, instead they want to influence the political discourse by releasing results that favor the Republicans so that right wingers can point to the poll as proof of their political momentum. Of course in reality, this is all fantasy.
But even Rasmussen puts Obama at a 50% approval rating. Is there one out there that has him in the 40's? i haven't seen it if there is...
Here is the source, and the credibility. Obama's approval has been bouncing up and down 50% since early August. He's been below 50% since the beginning of October. According to Pollster.com partner Charles Franklin “despite identically sized three-day samples, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll is less variable than Gallup". That means that Gallup fluctuates wildly because Gallup's polling methodology has a wider margin of error. Rasmussen uses a running average, which makes it's polling numbers more stable and significantly more accurate. That makes Rasmussen the most accurate poll available. I know, I know Zibby believes that any poll that doesn't show Obama with a high approval rating must be biased, right? And what is Zibby's criteria for bias? Well, any poll that doesn't agree with Zibby's bias MUST be biased!
The same source I've been citing since the get go... Seems trite to keep beating that dead horse but whatever...
Wait for it... Someone's going to claim Rasmussen's numbers are biased ONLY BECAUSE they don't like their numbers. THAT's when we have to beat the dead horse - again!
And Keith Olberman and MSNBC are as unbiased as it gets in cable network news... I hear ya... May the kool-aid drinking begin!!!
Obama's had another up and down week (at 53% today.) He's been going back and forth between about 50% and about 56% for what seems like ages. I'm trying to look at this in a positive light... I think it means he has pretty solid support at that 50% point (very important place to have support, obviously)... Although I can imagine that GOP supporters would be pleased that he hasn't been able to rise above 56% in quite some time now. Still... I think there's plenty of room for improvement. A large part of it comes down to the economy. If average people feel like the economy is getting better, then Obama's approval rating will rise significantly. The Democrats really need to see an improvement in the economy (not just the stock market and the GNP but with unemployment) by next summer to hold their advantage in congress (and hopefully expand upon it as they really need a huge majority in order to get anything done since so many Democrats are essentially Republicans.)
Here are some numbers from Gallup: Conservatives Are Single-Largest Ideological Group "Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008...These annual figures are based on multiple national Gallup surveys conducted each year, in some cases encompassing more than 40,000 interviews. The 2009 data are based on 10 separate surveys conducted from January through May. Thus, the margins of error around each year's figures are quite small, and changes of only two percentage points are statistically significant" To review: Conservatives: 40% of Moderate: 35% Liberal: 21% I was watching Campbell Brown on CNN Friday night. She had someone on that said that for unemployment to drop to an acceptable 5%, the economy needs to create 250,000 new jobs every month for the next five years. BTW, if you leave commentary aside, I think that Campbell Brown on CNN weekdays at 8:00PM and Brett Baier on Fox News weekdays at 6:00PM are the two best NEWS programs on TV. My favorite commentary program is Lou Dobbs on CNN weekdays at 7:00PM.
Yeah, there was a time that I would have described myself as a moderate conservative. My views haven't changed all that much, but the political spectrum has shifted so far right that I am now described as a flaming liberal pinko commie freak. I suspect the labels have limited meaning. Many people are able to take a variety of ideological positions, depending on the specific issue. Need proof? Even Mia thinks that regulation of the insurance industry is needed. Does that make him a liberal or a socialist?
No, it makes him a Republican. If he were for zero regulation, he'd be a libertarian (Read Ron Paul). On a purely economic scale, it tells you where the Republicans are on the scale of right to left. Regarding popularity levels, this is an interesting read: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...istration/obama_approval_index_month_by_month Apparently Obama hasn't enjoyed more than 50% support in more than four months. With 21% of the nation identifying themselves as Liberal, I hope the president still feels his election was a mandate for "Liberal" change and insists on the most liberal of agendas for our nation without wavering.
No, it makes him a human, one that is able to think for himself and come to a reasonable conclusion when presented with all the relevant facts - at least on some matters, some of the time (I can't give up too much on this one) Our tendency to cast labels is not productive. It creates unnecessary divisiveness and hostility.
Right. Spokesperson, not Spokesman/Spokeswoman Fireperson, not Fireman/Firewoman Human, not Republican/Democrat Do you keep your sugar and salt in identical clear glass containers in your kitchen cabinet without any labels? Adjectives are a necessary part of any language and serve to aide in understanding. Divisiveness comes when you assign a positive or negative connotation to those adjectives, and apply that connotation in a broad and general manner. The PC crowd seems to have a hard time figuring that out, and tries constantly to make us all the same with watered down language. I believe it the book 1984 provided a nice description of a society that tries to "clean up" the language. [Edit] By the way, the phrase "Not Productive" may very well qualify as my favorite phrase in the Obama politispeak dictionary.