Things aren’t fairing so well with the Cult of Obama lately. In fact, if there could be a theme song to Obama’s second term as President, it would have to be B.B. King’s “The thrill is gone”.
All the polls are singing in harmony.
According to the latest AP poll, Obama has reached his lowest approval rating ever of 40% and his highest disapproval ever of 59%. More important, 57% now say that he can’t manage the government effectively.
It’s hard to keep a cult going if people think that you are a lousy leader.
On immigration, over 2/3’s of Americans disapprove of how he is handling the issue. In fact, for the first time in a long time more Americans have a favorable view of Republicans on immigration than Democrats, by 29-25% respectively, (a net flip of ten points since May).
Obamacare continues to eat at his political fortunes like a cancer. The latest poll from the Kaiser Foundation showed not only the highest level of disapproval for Obamacare, but the highest jump in disapproval in the history of that poll, with 53% now opposing the law, (an increase of eight points since June). It’s a good bet that personal experience and “word of mouth” advertising are killing it. Add this to the businesses that are now getting estimates on next year’s insurance costs, (and about to take action accordingly), and you get nothing but political headwinds for Obamacare (and its authors) as far as the eye can see.
Regarding foreign policy, (which has been Obama’s best measure with the public), the AP poll now shows outright majorities of between 57% and 60% disapproving of his handling of the major issues of the day; from Israel’s conflict with Hamas, to Afghanistan, to Russia and the Ukraine and Iraq.
Then there is Obama’s latest achievement of presiding over the addition of over seven trillion dollars to the national debt – more than all of our debt from George Washington to Bill Clinton combined, (for a total of over $153,000 per household). Little wonder that the latest NBC News poll shows 76% of Americans believing that their children’s generation will not have things better than they do, up from 60% just prior to the onset of “Hope and Change”.
When people are pessimistic about the future, they tend to lose interest in what you have to say.
The “Too little, too late” award goes to the respondents of the recent CNN/Gallup poll with 53% saying that they would now vote for Mitt Romney, and only 44% expressing support for Obama. This should leave Democrats a little sweaty over whether voters want to send them to DC to support a guy that most of them now wish that they hadn’t elected in the first place.
Most interesting is the flip in support among women, with 52% to 45% now supporting Romney over Obama – almost the inverse of how they voted in 2012, (44% vs. 55% for Obama). Now you know why Democrats keep spending so much time talking about an imaginary Republican “war on women”.
Obama has become so politically toxic that even the Obama-endorsed incumbent Democrat Governor of Hawaii (an Obama “home” state) lost his primary 67% to 31% to a challenger that he outspent by more than ten to one.
Of course all second term presidencies fall prey to diminished enthusiasm. They get mired in either events, politics, scandal or all of the above, and none ever really make much of a comeback once they take a nosedive. People tend to move on. As George Burns once put it, “you can re-light a cigar, but it’s never the same”.
But it’s even worse when your popularity was built on emotion regarding a man rather than ration or reason. When the man ultimately fails (and they always do), what’s left to keep people drinking the Kool-Aid? It’s like an over-inflated market bubble that finally pops.
The politics of emotion are always more prone to manipulation, and can climb quicker and easier than anything built on reason, simply because we are emotional creatures – which is exactly why so many politicians resort to it. It’s the political version of the “Dark Side” which, as Yoda pointed out, is “quicker, easier and more seductive”. But it ends in a bad place.
The Cult of Hope and Change was all about Obama when it waxed and it’s about him now as it wanes. It’s waning because Americans are now well beyond their “emperor has no clothes” moment. And that’s exactly how a cult collapses; people see the leader for what he really is.
“The thrill is gone; the thrill is gone away… You know you done me wrong, and you’ll be sorry someday.”
Someday is fast approaching.
Lessons from the Obama Backlash
Obama Was the Issue
At the risk of demonstrating a keen grasp of the obvious, Obama was THE issue in this campaign. Republican campaigns were like the gun store with the “Salesman of the Year” poster of Obama over the counter. And he was making the cash register ring.
Liberals tried to suggest that 2014 was an “election about nothing”, but that’s because it was all about their guy, his agenda and the big government that comes along with it. Obama was such an issue that many Democrat candidates wouldn’t admit to voting for him, or even that they supported him and his policies – to which Obama quickly reminded everyone that, yes they did.
Leave it to a narcissist to confirm that it was all about him.
The results speak for themselves. Democrats even lost in deep blue states like Maryland and Illinois…a few of the places where Obama actually dared to campaign. In a happy bit or irony, half of the Senate Democrats who voted for Obamacare are now gone.
If you accept (as Democrats suggested) that Obama had a mandate for “Hope and Change” after the 2008 election, you have to admit that it’s as gone as a goose in winter now.
Republicans Still Need to Define an Agenda
In 1994 Republicans successfully nationalized the off-year elections around an issues based agenda. It worked spectacularly. Then in 2010 and now they succeeded simply by “not being Obama”, which tells you something about how popular Obama is with voters.
But that won’t be enough in the next election. Democrats will continue to run away from Obama like scalded dogs because his ineptness has given the big government their agenda needs such a bad name that they will eventually need to throw him under the bus. That goes double for the next Democrat presidential nominee.
Remember, for liberals, government is never the problem. It is always that someone is just “not doing it right”, or it just needs a little more of your money. The success of their agenda always takes priority, even if that means violating politically correct “ethics” and blaming a guy who happens to be the first black president.
The best way to put forward a national governing vision is to start legislating now, not simply sit back and leave defining an agenda up to the next Republican presidential nominee.
2015 offers the GOP the perfect opportunity to use Obama as a foil to define what they are, and what Democrats are by way of their opposition. They need to demonstrate just who the problem is by piling bill after bill on Obama’s desk – including a repeal of Obamacare – and make him have to keep switching veto pens because they run out of ink.
Gridlockamageddon is Coming!
You think you’ve seen gridlock? You ain’t seen nothing yet baby. You can almost hear it now, the copious wailing and gnashing of teeth in the media and the DC political class about more gridlock and obstruction now that Republicans run both the US House and the Senate.
Even in defeat, Harry Reid set the table with his “congratulatory” statement, saying, “The message from voters is clear: they want us to work together”. Really? If voters wanted a Congress that would “work with Obama”, they must need glasses or they would have voted to put Democrats in control. Instead they voted for Republicans who made it quite clear that they opposed Obama, Obamacare and Obamanomics, and would work to rein him in.
In other words, they voted for what the media will call obstruction and gridlock.
Have you ever noticed that “gridlock” or “obstruction” is usually defined as Republicans not giving Democrats what they want? But if it was gridlock for House Republicans not to work with Senate Democrats and a Democrat President, will it be gridlock for a Democrat President not to work with a Republican House and a Republican Senate? Don’t hold your breath.
The gridlock apocalypse is upon us!
Good Candidates Matter
Much has been made by political establishment types over suggesting that Republicans did well because they kept too many kooky conservatives from being nominated this year. They say the lesson is that when they pick the candidates, Republicans will prevail.
But the fact is that good candidates usually do well (or at least better) regardless of the political environment or what they believe. Being a good candidate who can effectively communicate is divorced from “what” is being communicated, (see: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton).
Republicans fielded high-quality candidates in most races this year, and it clearly made a difference. But don’t let anyone suggest that conservatives don’t make good candidates. Just look at Joanie Ernst in Iowa, and Ben Sasse in Nebraska, both supported by Tea Party conservatives. (See also: Scott Walker, Tim Scott, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, etc.)
It’s just a fact of life that there is large group of people in politics who just want to win, and they and their money gravitate towards quality candidates who look like they can. If conservatives start spending real time focusing on identifying the best candidates to run up and down the ballot in 2016 and start coalescing around them, odds are more of those fence sitters will come along for the ride.
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Enjoy the win…but start getting ready for the next fight.