Obama Job Approval Continues to Decline: Gallop Disapprove at 48% - The Carter Comparison

Time Magazine Irony - Carter and Inflation, Carter graced Time Cover Consistantly - image Time Archives
The Gallop Daily Presidential Tracking Pollnow shows President Obama’s approval at 45% in the latest poll released this past week. A Rasmussen poll taken during the same period shows a 53% disapproval, with Fox and USA Today showing the President’s approval under 50% (Real Clear Politics). A look at past Presidential Approval Ratings up through George W. Bushshows that the majority of incumbent Presidents had approval ratings well above 50% going into the second year of their presidency, with two notable exceptions: Carter, whose approval fell below 50% after his first year in office and stayed at or below 50%. Carter’s policy’s were eerily similar to Barack Obama’s – however, Carter was not seen as an aggressive Progressive (Socialist), even though he fostered the same type of Government intervention programs, including auto bailouts (Chrysler), and job creation funded by the Federal Government. One often wonders if, with the blueprint for disaster outlined by Carter readily available – that no-one bothered to avail themselves of the evidence of what might or might not work.

It was the economy and the rise in interest rates, coupled with a world view of a “weak” United States, which cost Carter a second term. Interest rates on everything from new home loans to used car loans rose substantially, while his pacifist approach to foreign policy, led to the American Embassy hostage situation in Iran. Carter also had his plan for reducing the costs of Health Care, while increasing Medicare, and the Hospital Cost Containment Act, which limited payments made to hospitals.

Déjà vu

Barack Obama’s initiatives are far more aggressive than Carter’s - the New York Times article 4/11/2010 entitled: “Interest Rates Have Nowhere to Go but Up” speaks to the coming rise in interest rates, which will strike the housing marketing first. The fact that interest rates have remained low for 30 years bring up images of the “misery index” which Carter created at that time. The misery index was a combination of the rate of inflation and unemployment.

Although high school history texts treat Carter kindly, one has to be aware that life, under the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, was miserable, and the fact that documents exist (in newspaper reports of the time and firsthand accounts. There are, perhpas, one or two accurate accounts of his Progressive approach to the presidency in the 173 books to be found on Amazon.)

It was under Carter that the term “Reagan Democrat emerged – Obama’s now faces the Tea Party movement – which, although painted as a fringe group of “right-wing” conservatives closely aligned to the Republican party, is, in truth, made of disenfranchised independents, Democrats and Republicans. The difference lay in the amount of time it took Carter to alienate the population 3 years) as opposed to the speed with which Obama has done so.