Obama’s slipping polls

“Americans pretty much still like the new guy,” said Andrew Malcolm in the Los Angeles Times, but two new polls on President Obama and his policies show that his support is slipping. The poll numbers are especially worrisome for Obama on his interventionist economic policies and the “exploding federal deficit.” Overall, it looks like “the clock is running out on Obama’s ability to blame the last administration for all ills.”

“To be fair,” Obama did take office facing “huge fiscal challenges,” said Peter Wehner in Commentary. But the polls reflect growing concerns that he chose to exacerbate these problems by pushing a “30-year-old liberal wish list.” When the deficit and national debt move from “abstract” concerns to "real life” problems like higher interest rates and higher taxes, Obama and his party will “rue” their course of action.

“Conservative are crowing” about Obama’s easing approval numbers, said Will Bunch in the Philadelphia Daily News, but “they probably shouldn’t crow that much”—voters trust them even less. Both the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll and the New York Times/CBS one found record-low approval ratings for the GOP, of 25-28 percent.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Still, it can’t be good news for Democrats that independents are now evenly divided on Obama, 46-44 percent, said Mark Murray in MSNBC. That's a big change from a 60-31 split in April. And Democrats must really be sweating now that Dick Cheney is more popular (26 percent) than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (24 percent).