Obamcare

For all of the wishful thinking in the mainstream press about President Obama’s positioning 40 days before this election, Obama’s approval rating looks remarkably similar to what it was on this date in 2010 — shortly before his party lost a historic 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats. On September 27, 2010 — exactly two years ago — Rasmussen Reports showed Obama’s net approval rating among likely voters to be minus-3 percentage points (with 48 percent approving and 51 percent disapproving).  Among those who felt “strongly,” Obama’s net approval rating was minus-14 points (with 27 percent “strongly” approving and 41 percent “strongly” disapproving). 

Today, Rasmussen Reports shows Obama’s net approval rating among likely voters to be minus-3 points (with 48 percent approving and 51 percent disapproving).  Among those who feel “strongly,” Obama’s net approval rating is minus-14 points (with 28 percent “strongly” approving and 42 percent “strongly” disapproving).  So, two years after the biggest Republican gains in the House since before World War II, Americans remain every bit as unimpressed with the way Obama is handling his job as president as they were then.

This stands to reason.  Obamacare remains an unprecedented threat to Americans’ liberty, this “recovery” still feels like a recession, the debt continues to explode, and Obama still ducks responsibility for anything that happens during his presidency, at least to some degree.  The American people are noticing.

Jay Cost has written that, in 2008, Barack Obama ran “a bandwagon campaign with a simple purpose. When your candidate lacks the experience traditionally thought to be necessary to run the government, and you have two wars and an economic slowdown, you need something to cover the gap. And that something was the impression that there was a broad, mass movement behind Obama.”