Recycling last month's news is better for their agenda

Last month the right got all the headlines going their way. They got to talk about 'the President's plummeting approval ratings, and 'outrage expressed at town halls,' and similar kinds of things to suggest that there was some kind of a national groundswell building for a defeat of health care legislation, which would in turn doom the Obama Presidency. As further evidence they cited the fact that Republican challengers were leading by about fifteen points in Governor's races in both New Jersey and Virginia.

And I agree, it was a bruising August for the President and Democrats' agenda to reform health care.

This month, the news is a bit different.

Let's start with the President's approval rating. Using the RCP average (more accurate because it is a 'poll of polls' while any one poll can be an outlier and be wrong): As of this morning it stands at Obama approval 53.4%, disapproval 41.1%. This is virtually the same as it stood a month ago. In other words, any news about 'plummeting approval ratings' is just plain old news. It declined very slightly between a month ago and Obama's speech to Congress and that slight decline has since been reversed. So if anything about his approval rating is news it is that it is holding remarkably steady, and further that the President has never fallen below 50% support in the RCP average. In addition to that the 53% support he has now is exactly the same support he had on election day. So those who support him by and large still support him, and the reverse also true of those who oppose him (well, not perfectly so, the President's disapproval rate is still five points less than John McCain got on election day so if anything it suggests that the President still rates slightly higher than he did on election day.

What about the 'tea party rallies?' Well, there are some people who have been stirred up like a nest of hornets to attend these events. The town hall I went to held by Congresswoman Kirkpatrick in Holbrook on September 3 included people who have been to more than one townhall with multiple congresspersons (and readily admitted to it.) Well, the memo did say, 'inflate your numbers.' And yes, a crowd estimated at 60,000 to 70,000 made it to Washington on a Saturday to protest. This number was exaggerated by a factor of thirty by some righty blogs (though Michelle Malkin, the most prominent, later published a 'clarification'.) If you really want to see what a crowd of 2,000,000 looked like in Washington look at aerial photos of this year's inauguration. Heck, Obama drew crowds during the campaign (like in Portland Oregon or St. Louis) that were bigger than last week's tea party protest, and keep in mind that he was inaugurated last January. It was a Tuesday (therefore a workday) and really cold and still a real two million showed up. Yes there are some righties who are so outraged they drive to every townhall they can get to so they can go back in and express their outrage again but keep in mind it is mostly the same people, not a 'groundswell of support.'

And Virginia and New Jersey? Well, the Republican candidates are still ahead but both races have now tightened into the single digits. In other words, if there is any momentum in either race right now then it is with Mr. Corzine and Mr. Deeds, not their opponents who have both seen 15 point polling leads cut in half over the past two or three weeks.

That hasn't stopped Republicans like spinmeister Frank Luntz from trying to keep last month's story going with yesterday's article helpfully analying the 'rage,' as if it was sweeping the country right now or Fred Barnes from claiming that Republicans are taking over Virginia again or even in one of the local papers from seeing this story written last week by Clint Bolick of the Goldwater Institute in which he still uses the term, 'plummeting approval ratings for the President.'

Maybe they are in a time warp. Last month's news is like an aphrodisiac for the GOP and their supporters and it's understandable they'd want to put that news cycle in front of readers and TV viewers again, but well, that's so..... last month.

I've heard of recycling newspapers but I will object when they try to recycle last month's news itself.

Presidential approval holding steady at 60%

Lately the conservative side of the wonkisphere has been all a-twitter (literally).

Note: I'm not sure if anyone else has used the term 'wonkisphere' yet but if not I will use it to describe those of us who look forward to the release of every new poll the way a loyal fan of Star Trek waits for the newest Priceline.com commercial just to see something new, and read political tea leaves the way an archeologist reads pottery shards.

They are feeling blessed with new life since this week the Realclearpolitics Presidential approval poll average dipped below 60%. Right now it registers at 59.6% (that's right, whole numbers just are so pedestrian for us denizens of the wonkisphere.) The RCP average is an average of several of the most recent polls taken on approval of the President.

Now, I'm not sure exactly what 60% is supposed to mean. To me it's just a number. But when a President is above that number he is perceived to be a Goliath, perhaps vulnerable to a single well placed stone but otherwise crushing any who dare to get in his way. Below 60%, all of a sudden the armor comes off and out steps a mere mortal. That's when the other side doesn't just sling an occasional 'test-stone,' to try and find the chink in the armor, but out come the rhetorical darts and arrows and the poisoned pens for a full out frontal assault.

A closer examination of the polls that are currently being used by the average suggests that they should go ahead and sheathe the darts and quiver the arrows and cap the pens. The seven polls in the current incarnation of the RCP average are the Gallup tracking poll, the Rasmussen tracking poll, and polls from Marist, Associated Press/GfK, Quinnipiac, USA Today/Gallup and Democracy Corps, which states up front that it is a Democratic polling firm (interestingly enough though Democracy Corps has often given Obama approval numbers below the RCP average.)

Of these polls, Marist actually shows that Obama actually went up a point from the last time they were polled. They showed he had approval of 55% on April 21-23 and this month that has gone up to 56%. Democracy Corps, the last time they polled (May 10-12) had Obama with an approval rating of 58% and it is now up to 59%. Quinnipiac shows the reverse numbers, with Obama falling from 59% on April 21-27 to 58% now. Obama's best marks come from the AP poll, at 64% approval, and that is also the same number where they had him on April 16-20. The only even marginally significant decline among the five standard polls is in the USA Today/Gallup poll. They have him at 61% today and his approval was 64% when they polled it at the end of March.

As for the tracking polls, it is true that Gallup (the same organization that showed Obama with a slight decline when they polled with USA Today) shows Obama's approval slowly going down. Or does it? It appears so, but then if you look back a little further, the 60% today is higher than it was near the end of March or beginning of April.

Rasmussen tracking has Presidential approval at 58%. However, Rassmussen has not showed it at 60% since March 4. So in fact 58% is good with this outfit.

Excluded from this average because their last polls are too old are several organizations that in the past have showed Obama with high marks for approval. These include CBS News, Pew Research, Ipsos/McClatchey, Fox News (!), CNN/Opinion Research, ABC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times(not the same as CBS News) and NBC/Wall St. Journal.

So it appears that this result is more a factor of the specific pollsters used this go around (and their differences in polling methods) than it is a function of any underlying trend.

Barack Obama has been remarkably steady around 60% for at least the past two months, and I believe this trend will continue.

Don't worry, Goliath is alive and well, which should make the right happy because they can go back to slinging stones.