Lately, the polls just keep getting worse and worse for Obama, prompting some to wonder if the sky is falling.
Actually though, his numbers are about where one would have predicted them to be. About the same as Clinton and Reagan at this stage, who both inherited a bad economy, albeit it much better than this one.
But there is something else in play in my view thats lowering the numbers a smudge...
When pollsters call, you often want to send a message. Third party candidates, for example, often poll better if they are seen as insurgents or renegades. Even though people have no intention of voting for them. People want to send a message with their poll response. But they don't want to throw away their vote. Cooler heads prevail in the actual booth.
And so it is with Obama. Much of his shrinking numbers represent independents or even some Democrats who are never going to vote for the Republican ticket, but are pissed off over Afghanistan or the lack of a public option or the bailouts or even gay rights or many other issues where Obama is seen by some as not moving fast enough.
Some of that displeasure is just a way of giving Obama the bird. Who knows, maybe if he bad been tough and brutal about it he could have gotten a public option. Johnson would have threatened the Senators. But those were different times.
So I believe his real poll numbers, if you calculate how people are going to pull the proverbial levers, are really higher than reported.
That said there IS a big enthusiasim gap right now. The birthers and the deathers are "fired up and ready to go" while the Democarts are angry and divided.
We need to close ranks around the 2010 election, and I don't think all is lost. For example, for much of my life I have been relatively apolitical. 2008 was the first time I really got involved emotionally in an election. 2010 will be the FIRST TIME (I am 54) that I ever voted in the midterms.
I think by the time the election rolls around a solid majority of Americans will see the health care reform for what it is - a stunning and near biblical achievment given the one vote margin of error in the Senate against an obstructionist opposition. And yeah, it falls short of true universal health care but even so this bill is truly dazzling in its audacity after all.