Obama plaqued by old adage: It’s the economy, stupid

Opinion

Discussion

July 18, 2010

By RONNIE ELLIS CNHI The Glasgow Daily Times Sun Jul 18, 2010, 06:18 AM CDT

FRANKFORT — With the passage of financial reform this week, President Barack Obama has delivered on his major campaign promises: financial stimulus, health care and financial reform.

Yet his poll numbers are at their lowest yet — his approval and disapproval ratings were both at 44 percent when he awoke Friday. There have been comparisons by his critics with Jimmy Carter, who was unable to work with Congress to enact his proposals. But the reality of the first part of Obama’s first term is in some ways more consistent with Ronald Reagan’s experience. Both moved quickly in their first terms to pass major legislation while their popularity and power were at their greatest.

So why is he doing so poorly in public opinion polls? It’s the economy, stupid. When the economy is bad, the economy is the only issue. The BP debacle in the Gulf Coast doesn’t help either, although there isn’t much Obama can do bout it.

People are fearful and they’re frustrated. They seem to think government not only can’t solve their problems but can’t even get out of its own way as CBS’ Bob Shieffer put it. Presidents often get too much blame when things go badly and too much credit when they go well. But that’s no different for Obama than for any president. Reagan saw his popularity drop but rebound. Carter’s never did. Just like Reagan and Bill Clinton, Obama faces losses in Congress in the first mid-term elections of his presidency. But Reagan and Clinton recovered. Obama’s hopes for recovery by 2012 rest on what happens between now and then with the economy.

In the meantime Republicans drool about November. Nowhere is that more on display than in Kentucky where Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul is running against deficits and debt and Obama’s financial stimulus — and subtly against Obama himself who is even more unpopular in Kentucky than he is nationally.

For Obama and Democrats, defending the stimulus isn’t easy. People have forgotten the doomsday predictions of worldwide economic collapse by virtually every economist — on the left and on the right — in October of 2008. New Hampshire’s Republican Sen. Judd Gregg recently said Obama’s financial polices avoided a much worse economic disaster than the public will ever fully understand. But that’s not the way it looks to most people.

Saved jobs aren’t as easy to point to or prove as new ones, especially when the unemployment rate hovers at 10 percent. For many voters, government is more involved in the economy than it should be and still the economy lags badly, people go without work and those who have jobs worry they can’t keep them. That’s not likely to change by November and it looks like a Republican year. Obama has to hope it changes by 2012.

———

Jim Bunning is at it again. He said New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was smart to die this year before the possible return of the estate tax next January. Bunning, of course, has credibility on both baseball and financial planning. He’s a Hall of Fame pitcher, has an economics degree, and worked after baseball as an investment broker. He is also no fan of the Yankees, as he made clear to me — a lifelong Yankee fan — in a conversation several years ago.

Of course we Yankee fans see the timing of Steinbrenner’s passing differently. We aren’t surprised Steinbrenner held on until his Yankees won another World Series and sat in first place at the All-Star break.

Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.

Text Only

Opinion

Americans need to change attitudes
There’s something inherently wrong with this country’s societal standards when a mother is harassed and humiliated for breastfeeding her child in public, while any partial or complete display of the same woman’s breasts in the media or on the street for the purpose of sexual objectification would seem acceptable to many Americans, male and female alike.

February 10, 2012
Near miss on super prediction
Let’s take a step into the past my seven faithful readers and review some predictions made in this space in early September. (Too bad it wasn’t late September and we could borrow the line “should be back in school.”)

February 4, 2012
Redistricting plans equally indefensible
I don’t know how Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd will rule in the re-districting case. Nor am I a constitutional attorney, so I can’t say with any authority the maps drawn by the Democratic controlled House to benefit Democrats or the one drawn by the Republican Senate to benefit Republicans are constitutional.

February 4, 2012
Comer sets good example
Newly elected Ag Commissioner Jamie Comer, a Gamaliel Republican, requested an audit of the department upon his taking the position earlier this month.

January 14, 2012
Fortis will be good partner
I put shoulder to the wheel in search of photos Thursday morning. First, there was an ancient bread van parked amongst some saplings on the side of which there was a woman’s name painted in white, puffy letters. Whose van might that be and I wonder if it comes with the for sale property?

January 7, 2012
Farewell to Gatewood
As word spread of Gatewood Galbraith’s passing, the same phrase was heard repeatedly: “Gatewood was a colorful character.”

January 7, 2012
Computers should make records easier to get
The digital revolution was supposed to make record-keeping easier and less costly for companies. Therefore it should make things simpler for the public or news outlets seeking open records to find them.

December 31, 2011
Resolutions for the new year
New Year’s is the time for resolutions, a lot of which won’t last until spring.

December 31, 2011
Things to rejoice this Christmas
The year that will soon lapse has been tough. It has been a year of immovable politics; a year of contentious state elections; a year of absurd gesticulations by certain fiscal court members.

December 24, 2011
YOUR VIEWS: Remember Christ’s birth
December 23, 2011
More Opinion Headlines

Opinion

Search Results

Discussion

Obama plaqued by old adage: It’s the economy, stupid

Site Map