Candidate Barack Obama may have talked a good game with sweeping promises of bi-partisan change, but so far he has failed abysmally to deliver. Such are the findings of a Gallup analysis of Obama’s second year drawn from its daily tracking polls for the period beginning in January of 2010 and ending in January of 2011.
Obama’s approval rating among Republicans averaged 13 percent, while among Democrats the average was 81 percent. The difference, 68 percentage points, is the largest for any president at the two-year mark in the half-century that Gallup has conducted polls of this statistic.
If there is good news for the president, it is that the level of polarization represented by these findings is not the highest for all years of a presidency. That distinction belongs to George W. Bush, who during his fourth year in office enjoyed an approval rating of 91 percent from his own party while only 15 percent of Democrats approved of the job he did. The differential is 76 percent.
Then again, George W. Bush did not campaign on the promise to mobilize independents and Republicans into “a working majority for change."
Another reason for optimism for Obama is that a polarized electorate didn’t stand in the way of reelection for two previous presidents, Clinton and Reagan, who at the two-year mark had approval rating gaps of 56 and 54 percent respectively.
Whether President Obama can accomplish the same feat hinges on two factors: (1) whether he can move convincingly toward the center and (2) whether his words and actions going forward will erase the memory among Republicans of having been branded as “the enemy.”
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Comments
the answer I gave at Kenneth Hayes' article about this
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Obama is not polarizing, his skin color is...if Obama was white, he would have his detractors, but he would not fit into the "most polarizing" category....if he was white, he would have been put into the JFK liberal category...not more, not less...so Obama is not the polarizer, his skin color is....and no, I am not painting all conservatives with the same brush...if any president has 50% polarizing factor, add another 10% that hate Obama for his skin color (and go to hell if you deny that racists exist) and you just put Obama into the "extraordinary" polarizing factor...it wasn't him or his policies that added that extra 10% that no other president in history has had to deal with...if Obama was white, he wouldn't have that extra 10% polarizing factor tacked on.
now, for the future, only a racist would suggest that a black president shouldn't be elected because the racists in the crowd would tack on a 10% extra polarizing factor....this "polarizing factor" is something we will have to deal with until we get several women, black, hispanic and asian presidents and vice presidents under our belts and the racists learn to accept the future.
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an after thought:
imagine what the polarizing factor would be if we elected a Mexican-American to president.
AND you haven't even heard his policies or political views!!
Or his party affiliation!
You could automatically tack on an EXTRA 40% polarizing factor to a Mexican-American president on Inauguration Day without one policy implemented!
Yep, the tag team of Genius and Genius who looks like something the cat threw up figured it out. It's because conservatives are racists. It is not because Obama stinks more than the two of you are dumb that he he is seen as polarizing. I have had more intelligent bowel movements than the two of you put together.
"It's not just Obama.
ANY black man elected president would have enraged the so-called "conservatives".
Sanders,are you kidding? At least Walrus said he didn't paint all conservatives with the same brush. If we're to take you seriously refrain from making such sweeping indictments.
I agree with you,Walrus. Surprise! Racism still exists but a Mexican president would only be polarizing if he/she were liberal IMO.
liberal or conservative, a Mexican-American President would still get pushback from whites, blacks, asians and even other hispanics (puerto ricans and cubans would never take their marching orders from a mexican...and it would be even more polarizing if we elected a honduran-american or salvadorian-american...other hispanics would be complaining from the day that person announced)
make that "Mexican-American"
Why is that,Walrus? Does the illegal immigration issue have something to do with it?
it has nothing to do with illegal immigration (we are talking about Americans, nothing but Americans...mexican-AMERICANS, honduran-AMERICANS, etc)
I was talking about the unwritten and unspoken hierarchy....this is the way people see themselves, but won't admit it outside of their race or nationality
Cubans
Puerto Ricans
Mexicans
then the people south of mexico
Japanese
Chinese
Koreans
Vietnamese
Filipinos
Germans
British
Swiss
French
Irish/Scottish
Italian
American Black
Jamaican Black
African Black
and on and on...each race or groupings of nationalities have an unwritten or unspoken hierarchy.
the listings above are small and not totally accurate( and do not relate grouping to grouping but only within groupings )but illustrate the people as they see themselves (or simply falsely believe themselves) to be in the pecking order of their grouping).
cont
cont.
Hispanics, for example vote totally different from one another and in reality shouldn't be all grouped together. Cubans vote republican, mexicans vote democrat....American blacks tend to vote democrat, African blacks tend to vote republican...white Americans that have a thorough mix tend to vote democrat, whites that have a "cleaner" or more "direct" bloodline tend to vote republican (polish-americans, german-americans, british-americans, etc.)
you won't find much of this written down...society is built on a facade...tear down this facade, and diplomacy and society begin to fall apart...we are only human....do I agree with the hierarchies? No, but I don't deny that they are there...when we've all mixed together until all our babies are a nice golden tan, then we will be rid of the hierarchies.
I see.So much for a melting pot. I'm from British bloodlines,my son is half Greek and my husband is German/Native American. We've got our own melting pot going. Too bad America can't.
liberals are doing their part to melt everyone into the pot...now, if we could only get the conservatives to add "a little coffee in their milk" their conventions would look a little more "golden brown".
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