Obama’s Strongly Approves Polling at 37%, Analysis: Campaign Promises do not translate to Governing

Rudderless Ship from: ibiblio.org

The Rasmussen Reports Presidential Daily Tracking for Sunday, March 29th, show Obama’s “Strongly Approves” remaining consistently below 40% - trending between 35% to a high of 38% since March 11, 2009. This, despite his continual dialogue with the American public; most recently, a prime time new conference, in which he tried to sell his budget. Unfortunately, the key word for the last appearance was: boring, with multiple articles pondering whether the President is appearing too often on television.

The Daily Tracking Poll, to date, has shown a division between party affiliation, with those Democrats strongly approving of the president’s job at 66% and those Republican’s who Strongly Disapprove at 54% (March 14).
Those polled on the left may find their perspective changing within the next few weeks, as Obama campaigned as the “Anti-Bush”, specifically promising to pull troops out of Iraq and overturn the Military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy regarding Gay’s in the Military.

Headlines today dictate otherwise: From the AP an article noting there will be no speed-up in troop withdrawal from Iraq, and that there will be a delay in changing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” rule in the foreseeable future. Additionally, as the rhetoric over plans to increase American military and civilian presence in Afghanistan, the administration is now talking about the import of stabilizing Afghanistan through – Democracy. Where have we heard that before?

What is driving public opinion just may be the perception that the President may not have a clear handle on the job he has before him, and therefore, appears to be taking pages from the previous administrations playbook, while attempting to put his own spin on any given policy. Having previously set the bar so high, it is impossible for Obama to please everyone that said; he is being overly ambitious in attempting to do too much too soon. Therefore, this lends to the appearance that our Chief Executive appears to be a rudderless ship, one which blows whichever way the wind may take it.