Poor Obama - the president can't get anything right these days.
Just when the faithful reader of the TOTUS was certain he deserved a boost in his ratings after he literally bought popularity with the recent push to hike the minimum wage, the last thing he expected was yet another plunge in his job approval rating. Sadly for him, as the latest WSJ/NBC News poll reveals, even with the "ten ten" initiative to appease the lowest common denominator, his job-approval rating just dropped to the lowest ever.
Perhaps the people are finally seeing beyond the perpetual scapegoating, the endless platitudes, the endless-er teleprompted speeches, and have realized that beyond all the talk, there is nothing more substantial to Obama - a president under whose rule the rich have gotten richer at the fastest pace in history, while the living standards of everyone else, that would be some 99% of the population - have declined precipitoulsy. That and the whole deteriorating economy thing, which will be in all out collapse once the Fed's artificial life support systems - the very reason why there is no recovery except to those who hold financial assets - are finally yanked.
Or maybe the people simply demand a new minimum wage plan: call it a "twenty twenty"?
From the WSJ [6]:
The results suggest Mr. Obama could weigh on fellow Democrats in midterm elections this fall, particularly in the conservative states that will play a large role in deciding whether his party retains its Senate majority.
Mr. Obama's job approval ticked down to 41% in March from 43% in January, marking a new low. Some 54% disapproved of the job he is doing, matching a previous high from December, when the botched rollout of his signature health law played prominently in the news. The latest survey also showed the lowest-ever approval in Journal/NBC polling for Mr. Obama's handling of foreign policy.
The findings come amid dissatisfaction with all elected leaders in Washington and low regard for the Republican Party. Roughly a quarter of those polled view the GOP positively, with 45% harboring negative views, weaker numbers than for the Democratic Party.
While fortunes could change in the months before November, Mr. Obama's power to help his party's candidates appear limited, said Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who directs the Journal/NBC poll with Democrat Fred Yang.
"The president is being taken off the field as a Democratic positive," Mr. McInturff said. "These numbers would suggest that, beyond his behind-the-scenes fundraising, it's hard to imagine the president on the road and hard to imagine where he would campaign."
Americans surveyed in the poll said they were less inclined to support a candidate if the person had been endorsed by Mr. Obama or was a "solid supporter" of his administration. Approval of Mr. Obama is particularly weak in the South and Midwest, regions where Democrats could have a tough time defending Senate seats.
Apparently the Russell 200,000 is not the economy:
Unease over the economy continues to drive these concerns. Sixty-five percent of those polled said the country is on the wrong track, compared with the 26% who said it was on the right one, a wider spread than in the midterm-election years of 2006 and 2010. Roughly one-quarter of the respondents think the economy will improve over the next year, while 57% believe the U.S. is still in a recession, despite years of modest economic growth and robust stock-market gains.
The only silver lining in all of this: Obama is not quite Dubya. Yet (thank white women).
Despite those signs of erosion for the president, Mr. Obama still doesn't engender the same levels of disapproval that his predecessor, George W. Bush, garnered at this point in his presidency. And Mr. Obama's support among women, particularly white women, as of now is strong enough to create a bulwark against GOP gains in the midterms.
Obama's slide charted:
[7]