Nation cools to extreme leftwing fundamental transformationIf President Barack Obama had piled up political capital with his impressive re-election, it’s largely gone.(from "McClatchy-Marist poll shows Obama tumbling in voters’ eyes" at mcclatchydc.com)
His approval rating has dropped to the lowest level in more than a year, with more voters now turning thumbs down on his performance than thumbs up, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll. The measure of how much people like him also has dropped.
At least some of the president’s fall to Earth lies in the fact that voters no longer see him in the context of an election. “You remove the electoral context and post-election celebration, and some of the numbers are returning to the dissatisfaction people had,” said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College in New York, which conducted the poll. “Any glow from his re-election is starting to fade,” he said.
The national survey, conducted four months after Obama was re-elected with 51 percent of the popular vote, found 45 percent of voters approving of the way he’s handling his job and 48 percent disapproving. That was down from a 50 percent approval rating in November and December, and the lowest since November 2011. Obama’s personal popularity also has declined, with 48 percent of voters having favorable impressions of him and 48 percent having unfavorable impressions. That was down from 53-44 in December.
Another factor in the president’s decline is anxiety about the economy and the country. Just 34 percent of voters think the country’s heading in the right direction, while 62 percent think it’s headed the wrong way.
Indeed, despite gains in jobs and the stock markets, voters think by 62-34 percent that the country is still in a recession. Just 22 percent think they’ll be better off in the coming year, while 41 percent think they’ll be about the same and 36 percent think they’ll be worse off.
Yet by 44-42 percent they prefer the Republican approach to curbing the deficit. Seven percent preferred neither way.
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