You could have predicted this result just by reading BMG 12 months ago, when the same trend was evident here. NYT:
President Obama’s support is eroding among elements of his base and a yearlong effort to recapture the political center has failed to attract independent voters, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, leaving him vulnerable at a moment when pessimism over the country’s direction is greater than at any time since he took office. … The poll found a 12-point jump since late June, to 43 percent, in the number of Americans who say the economy is getting worse. And for the first time since taking office, his disapproval rating has reached 50 percent in the Times and CBS News polls. “I don’t disapprove of Barack Obama as a person, but as a president he has disappointed me greatly,” said Ann Sheets, 69, a Democrat from Chattanooga, Tenn., speaking in a follow-up interview. Ms. Sheets added, “I’m realistic enough to know how difficult it is and I am not against compromise, but I voted for a backbone. You have to draw some lines in the sand, and I don’t think he has done that.”
As an indicator of the 2012 election, however, this poll is encouraging. Money quote:
The poll found a 43 percent approval rating for Mr. Obama. It is significantly higher than Jimmy Carter, who had an approval rating of 31 percent at a similar time in his presidency, according to the Times and CBS poll, which showed Ronald Reagan with an approval of 46 percent and George H.W. Bush at 70 percent.
Both Carter and Bush, of course, lost their bids for re-election. Reagan won, and Obama is at almost exactly at the same place given the margin of error. Still, I’d feel much better about the president’s chances if he had a base that was fired up and aggressive — see Warren, Elizabeth — rather than disappointed and depressed.
Bernie Sanders for the Socialists, Ron Paul for the Libertarian/Tea Party, Bachmann representing the Christian Apocalypse Party, versus the traditional corporatists Obama and Romney. I’d probably vote for Sanders.
…especially if we had an IRV system, but I reject what I see as your implication that not much separates Obama and Romney. If it comes down to those two, and I predict it will, the former gets my support no question.
Above comment intended as a reply to farnkoff in case anyone can’t tell.
and much more to do with a crappy economy.
If the economy had recovered for Carter, he would have won. If the economy had stayed poor for Reagan, he would have lost. It has little to do with firing up the base. The vast majority of the Democratic base will vote Democratic. The vast majority of the Republican base will vote Republican. This should surprise exactly no one. Where the game is won or lost is among independent voters. Obama’s plan to woo them hasn’t worked. Why? Less because of any particular strategies he has or hasn’t employed and more because the economy still sucks.
Sure, Congress and Obama could and should do more to help the economy. But the fact is that we’re in an economic tailspin that has a lot more to do with actions of the private sector than with actions in Washington. Assuming things stay the same, Obama will bear the brunt of it, simply because he’s President. Since everyone seems to assume the presidency has God-like powers, he’s expected to wave a magic wand and make everything better. If he doesn’t — and he can’t — then there’s an increasingly possibility of President Rick Perry.
And in such a situation, I believe the ground game of the campaign becomes vastly more important than if the economy were in better shape. That’s where firing up the base is important – who is going to do the work to convince the people who’d vote for Obama to actually get to the polls in big numbers and to convince the fence sitters both to vote and to vote for Obama?
The White House strategy over the last three years sends the signal that the grassroots really are not that important – “we need to make those independents happy”. That hasn’t worked as you have noted, and it has bred discontent and cynicism among the people who worked so hard in 2008.
Is there anything that can happen to “fire them up”? I don’t see it. His speech has been a flop, his plan will not go anywhere and the economy is stagnant. The wars continue, this $500 Million Solyndra debacle will cast a shadow on him, the market could tank at any moment… or it might not. Obamas move to the center will have a strong dampening effect on “firing up the base”. On top of this, I see no chance of Dems taking back any seats (net) in the House and the very good possibility of Reps taking the Senate.
The only good news is the Republican Presidential candidates aren’t perceived as very strong. Might get more interesting when the field shrinks to Romney and Perry.
…the polls suggest that among Democrats Obama is doing better than Clinton at a comparable point in his first term. Also, as low as the President’s ratings are right now Congressional GOP is much lower.
seems that no matter how lowly Congress polls, most people like their Congressman. Presidents are a different story though.
Obama won the nomination over Clinton because of a fired-up base. Patrick won re-election despite a bad MA economy (in an absolute if not a relative sense) in part because of continued strong support from his base. W. won very close elections in 2000 and 2004 with the boost of a passionate base.
There is certainly something to your deterministic analysis, but at the margins and when the race is close — the 2000 and 2004 elections again come to mind — a strong base of millions of fully engaged passionate supporters can make an important difference, it seems to me. Obama to all appearances, as a result of policies he deliberately has adopted and continues to adopt, is going to be running without that.
Certainly in primaries (Clinton vs. Obama), the candidate who can better fire up the base matters because that’s a party election. But in general elections this is considerably less true. Patrick benefited from both a weak Republican opponent and the fact that the Massachusetts economy was pretty good in a relative sense — which is likely more important than how the economy is doing in an absolute sense. (Consider a situation in which the national economy improved by 2012 such that the unemployment rate was only 7%. That would still be poor in an absolute sense, but good relative to where it is now — and Obama’s chances would brighten considerably).
Also, I think the analysis that many seized upon to help explain Bush’s victories in the 2000 and especially 2004 election — that the Karl Rove strategy of “targeting the base” was the reason for his victory — is wrong. He won because he did much better with independents than I expected at the time, partly because Kerry didn’t make a strong case for himself (in other words, he could not overcome the incumbency advantage). Even more importantly, the economy was — at least on a superficial level — doing OK.
This doesn’t mean elections are completely deterministic and based solely upon the economy. But those factors are far more important than what typically gets the attention — how both sides are doing with their “base.”
… which archives would detail a similar, if not symmetric, trajectory to Devals’ support from his “base”, some of whom threatened to abandon him over casinos, 9C cuts, etc… There was a similar… concern… over the perceived strength of a putative opponent which turned out not to be so much of a concern. Charlie who?
Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, and Ron Paul.
I don’t know about Mitt Romney, but if he’s the nominee, we can ask, “Can he fire his base up?”
…unless he has Bachmann on the ticket with him!
Bachmann on the ticket is poison to the center…and anybody who’s not an independent.
The same strategy will work this time – they’ll build the ticket to shore up the base
be the same.
We know Romney would the devil on his ticket if it would get him elected.
While Palin did shore up the evangelical base, she was a disaster everywhere else. SNL will have a field day with her!
My favorite haiku from the 2008 cycle:
Say something brilliant
Like, “In what respect, Charlie?”
Four weeks later, lose…
SNL will have a field day with Bachmann if she’s on the ticket
I largely agree with HoyaPauls analysis on the race and why the discussion of whether Obama has been progressive enough is rather irrelevant. That said he is missing a key point for why Obama is losing independents and trailing downward and where the independents and progressives are on the same page. In my view, Obama has time and time again appeared to decline leadership and would rather be a delegator or conciliator in chief rather than a commander in chief. His tenure at other executive positions, as HLS Law Review Editor and Community Organizer in Chicago, belay this as part of his temper and this was a huge asset in 2008 when we were sick of Dubyas shoot from the hip management style and wary of the temper McCain-Palin displayed. Now though he looks weak and indecisive in a rather Carter esque way and the parallels are starting be to quite striking. Carter was an outsider, fresh face, respecter of Congressional authority in the wake of a controversial Imperial Presidency. In many ways Obama is the same. Fortunately there is no Reagan figure on that side, though Romney is certainly the Bush 80′ heir and Perry certainly thinks of himself as the Reagan 80′ heir. Prospects of a left wing primary challenge are also similar.
Progressives complain that the President gave in too much and independents interviewed complained he ‘lacks spine’. I think the jobs bill is a largely symbolic way of taking the fight to the Amerian people and setting important contrasts and lines in the sand. He won’t compromise on social security, won’t compromise on raising taxes on the wealthy, won’t compromise on creating middle class jobs and tax cuts. These are areas where progressives and independents are in solid agreement, and they will respond to the bolder leadership style. To progressives, he is one of them again taking the fight to the GOP, to independents he is a leader willing to get things done and fight for his principles. We have a year to see if it works.
You wrote: “He won’t compromise on social security, …”
He’s already destroyed it. He’s slashed the payroll tax rate, doing major if not catastrophic damage to the actuarial basis of Social Security. We now have to impose a tax INCREASE — to lower- and middle-class workers — in order to get back to where we were in December of 2010. The two minor (at that time) changes needed to ensure sustainability through the baby boom (removing the payroll tax cap and adding 2-3 years to the retirement age) now become two more hurdles on top of an already impossible political burden.
As night follows day, a year from now (in the 2012 campaign season, or shortly thereafter) Democrats and Republicans alike will wring their hands and say “we need to dramatically slash benefits because there is nowhere near enough income to sustain them and a payroll tax increase is impossible in this hyper-partisan political climate.”
The two drivers of our economic problems at the moment are:
(1) The aging baby boom and their associated increased needs for health care
(2) The skyrocketing cost of health care
We are currently taking the path of betraying the baby boom, and leaving them to suffer and die in illness and poverty.
The least we can do, as a society, is admit that that is what we’re doing, and that Barack Obama is leading the way.
and this was a big reason – beyond extending Bush-era tax rates for those over $250K TAXABLE income – I was dismayed by last December’s capitul…um, brilliantly-negotiated 11-dimensional-chess deal.
Now the President, in his speech earlier this month, wants to cut SS withholding even more. They’re creating a funding shortfall in a program that really didn’t have one (and banking on the whole country believing the program always was on shaky footing, thanks to all the propaganda to that effect).
I will say this new proposal to increase revenue is much better, but I’m highly skeptical. Obviously it won’t get past Boehner & Co., so it’s all about establishing a contrast for the election. Maybe the White House finally figured out their repeated folds were doing them no good with the “independents” and really irritating the base? I could’ve told them that months ago.
he has compromised on taxes for the wealthy. Remember those 2001 tax rates that were to expire last December 31? We’ve still got them because he compromised.
What progressives and independents really want most is an improvement in the jobs outlook. That they aren’t likely to get, thanks to the compromises that ensure we’ll be focusing on the deficit instead of stimulating growth.