It’s not that President Obama did so great in the most recent NY Times/CBS poll (full poll here). It’s that everybody else – especially congressional Republicans – did much, much worse.
The astonishing top line: 82% of Americans disapprove of how Congress is doing its job. According to the NYT, that is
the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995.
More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt-ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about doing what is best for the country. Nearly three-quarters said that the debate had harmed the image of the United States in the world.
Also, perhaps not surprisingly, Americans actually wanted something resembling a compromise deal, and they reacted badly to the folks who weren’t interested in that.
The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations…. The public’s opinion of the Tea Party movement has soured in the wake of the debt-ceiling debate. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according to the poll. In mid-April 29 percent of those polled viewed the movement unfavorably, while 26 percent viewed it favorably. And 43 percent of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence on the Republican Party, up from 27 percent in mid-April…. Speaker John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, saw his disapproval rating shoot up 16 points since April: 57 percent of those polled now disapprove of the way he is handling his job, while only 30 percent approve.
And here’s where the silver linings for Obama start to appear.
The public was more evenly divided about how Mr. Obama handled the debt ceiling negotiations: 47 percent disapproved and 46 percent approved…. The president’s overall job approval rating remained relatively stable, with 48 percent approving of the way he handles his job as president and 47 percent disapproving — down from the bump up he received in the spring after the killing of Osama bin Laden, but in line with how he has been viewed for nearly a year.
Considering what a clusterf%$# the whole thing was, an evenly-divided rating isn’t too bad. And even more promising (not that this is a huge change from past polls):
Sixty-three percent of those polled said that they supported raising taxes on households that earn more than $250,000 a year, as Mr. Obama has sought to do — including majorities of Democrats (80 percent), independents (61 percent) and Republicans (52 percent).
A majority of Republicans, for God’s sake. Somehow, though, I doubt that preference will be reflected in the Super-Congress. Finally,
Americans said that they trusted Mr. Obama to make the right decisions about the economy more than the Republicans in Congress, by 47 percent to 33 percent…. And they were still more likely to blame President George W. Bush for the bulk of the nation’s deficit: 44 percent said that the deficit was mostly caused by the Bush administration, 15 percent said it was mostly caused by the Obama administration and 15 percent blamed Congress.
So, overall, though Obama doesn’t exactly come out of all this smelling like a rose, at least he doesn’t stink to high heaven. Happy birthday, Barack.
Christopher says
…the 47% who say they disapprove of the President’s handling of the debt ceiling negotiations divides between those who disapprove because they favored the GOP and those who disapprove because they think Obama caved too much. How come polls like this only ask binary questions, and rarely ask why or otherwise tease out what the respondent is thinking?