Obama’s ratings will continue to fall: look out below!
For Gay Democrats and zealous Obama supporters a crushing reality break is descending upon them as the President sinks lower and lower in major public opinion polls.
President Obama may well come to look back at the summer of 2011 as the halcyon days of high approval ratings despite his current 39-54 negative job approval in the Gallup Poll. The indications are that his ratings will continue to crater and are likely to drop even lower….and then lower again. So, bad are Obama’s actions that some former Gay supporters are tuning out whatever he says.
Underlying his overall job approval rating is his approval rating, in the Gallup Poll, on specific issues. These internals suggest that even more trouble is ahead for the beleaguered president. On the economy — the central issue now by far — only 26% approve of the job he is doing while 71% disapprove. This rating of 26-71 contrasts with his 37-60 rating on the economy by Gallup as recently as May. When a president drops like that, he is in real trouble.
On job creation, Obama wins the approval of only 29% and the disapproval of 65% and on the federal deficit, he gets only 24% approval and 71% disapproval. With joblessness plaguing most urban areas where gay life normally flourishes, enthusiasm for the President is often muted.
In fact, only on the generic issue of fighting terrorism does Obama score in positive territory, 53-40, in the wake of bin Laden’s killing and the apparent success in toppling the murderous Qaddafi regime in Libya. On Afghanistan, he gets negative ratings of 38-55 and on foreign policy in general, he draws negatives of 42-51. And despite the effort by the GLBT community to successfully reverse Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell, actual combat service in the War on Terror is not a high priority among most young Gay people.
Even on the traditionally Democratic issue of education, voters disapprove of Obama’s performance by 41-50. The import of the education reforms in states like New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Florida and Wisconsin — all initiated by Republican governors — is that the Republicans are beginning to capture the education issue away from the Democrats.
Meanwhile, Democrats are seen as focusing more on peripheral issues such as bullying and trans-gender studies that do not contribute in any serious manner to making students competitive in the 21st Century. More superior students in Asia and the emerging economies of Eastern Europe and Latin America do not study militant gay liberation or trans-gender empowerment.
So what is holding Obama’s overall job approval “up” at 39%? Not much. A residual personal favorability and a positive, gay-friendly image are about all that are keeping his job approval from dropping into the 20s along with his rating on handling the only issue the country cares about. It is just a matter of time before his ratings drop into the mid and low thirties and possibly even lower. While the majority of Gays will likely support the President, their population numbers are much too low to keep him from falling further as the economy continues to weaken. In fact, astute observers can see as much as 40 percent or more of Gay voters going Republican considering the fact that 35 percent voted that way in 2008.
With no economic improvement on the horizon and no clear Republican candidate to attack, Obama is likely to sink ever deeper into the abyss, so far that he will find it impossible to climb out when the actual fall election is upon us. The handwriting is on the wall in the form of his dismal poll ratings on the economy.