The good news in CNN's latest update on Obama's approval rating is that it has inched higher, to 50 percent. However the bad news is, it seems to me, threefold.
One, the marginal body politic remains as fickle as ever. Obama is the same president with the same skills and same accomplishments that he possessed a month or a year or even several years ago, yet his approval rating bounces around as though he is somehow an ever-improving or self-degrading man. It's a perpetual source of dismay that the center is so inconstant; it's what we expect, nonetheless we never get used to it.
Two, his disapproval rating is 47 percent — a percentage that may strike you as familiar. Or at least it should, for it is also the percentage of the 2012 presidential vote that the strikingly incompetent Mitt Romney managed to rack up. This suggests that even though Obama's popularity has gained in strength, the dead-enders among us are as populous, negative, and determined as ever.
Which leads us to the inseparable problem of number three — inseparable, that is, from electoral fickleness and dead-ended determination. Perhaps you had hoped along with me that by 2016, the "vast middle" would have moved nearly as vastly to the center-left, as it is rumored to have already done. Yet in CNN's latest poll, center-left Obama's approval-disapproval ratings resemble rather remarkably the 2012 election's result (51 percent, Obama, to Romney's aforementioned 47 percent). This is a snapshot way of saying: Little has changed, and perhaps not a damn thing has changed, not yet anyway. The percentage of persuadable American voters remains stuck in the low single digits. It's quite likely that 2016 will be 2012 all over again.
Which, it should be admitted, is OK, since the presidential outcome will be the same as well. What I hoped for, though, was a Republican thrashing so bloody, that alone would persuade the party powers to conduct a more earnest autopsy. Another two to four years of these yahoos-as-are will seem unbearable, and in fact may be unbearable.
I think this is a common mistake. Using people as proxies for popularity or the mood of the electorate is a shaky proposition at best. Many of the same people who disdain Obama like the basic elements of Obamacare. You are absolutely right to say party identification hasn't changed much. But the coalition of those who are sympathetic to the Republican party is falling apart on the rocks of flags and gays and damn near everything else. It really is a matter of commitment to vote. Finding candidates that can speak to and energize the disparate factions of the Republican party will be nearly impossible for a presidential candidate and not much easier for congressional or senate candidates. I'll say it again, the Republican big tent is on fire.
Posted by: Peter G | June 30, 2015 at 12:56 PM
Like Sullivan...getting all scaredy cat. Let's wait and see what is left after the Republican primaries before we get upset.
Posted by: teabow | June 30, 2015 at 01:09 PM
What Peter said. Also, assuming Bush is the only real candidate they have, things aren't looking so good for the Republicans:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/jeb-bush-dogged-by-decades-of-questions-about-business-deals/2015/06/28/0138223c-edb7-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html
Posted by: Bob | June 30, 2015 at 01:47 PM
I understand PM's point of view. So many times the Republicans have looked like falling apart. Time and again they have demonstrated complete incompetence in governance, in foreign affairs, in basic military strategy. Even in bookkeeping. And damn if they haven't been rewarded for it. Now my point of view is not unlike Charlie Brown's belief that he really is going to kick the football this time. I think the Republicans have themselves cornered this time. I hope I am not wrong. I don't think there's a snowflake's chance in hell of the Republicans securing the White House and that should be obvious to everyone. But now am beginning to think there could be a major change in both the House and the Senate in the Democrats favor.
Posted by: Peter G | June 30, 2015 at 03:40 PM
The Senate certainly, since the number of seats the GOP has to defend this cycle is much greater than those the Dems have to defend. But as long as they can keep the State Houses, and by gerrymandering, the Congress, they'll achieve their aim of clogging up the pipes. I think they've given up on the presidency, the clown show notwithstanding.
Posted by: shsavage | June 30, 2015 at 10:02 PM