Congrats to ObamaFollow

Obama, as you're aware, stepped into a huge mess. Personally, I attribute his dropping approval rating to the fact that he's dared to delve into cluttered closets that people didn't want to have to look into (Health care), clean up poopy messes that Bush failed to clean up (Afghanistan) and fixing the economy that the last admin left him terribly broken.

Bush on the other hand, had 9/11 to boost his approval rating with simply with a couple well written speeches (not written by him I'm sure).

I think you'd agree that a presentials approval is due as much to the events and situations they're forced into as it is on the actual decisions they make and things they accomplish.

I think Obama's approval will go up as some of his longer term strategies to deal with the problems left him by Bush, come to fruition.

and also the same one Varrus links to every other week. So we know it's a good source!

Pratchett defines mob intelligence variously as "the IQ of the stupidest member of the mob divided by the number of participants" and "the square root of the IQ of all parties". Take your pick.

yeah, we have no problem fighting, but posting a result from a notoriously low poll is just boring. It's also already been flogged to death by varus.

Edited, Sep 1st 2009 10:10am by Xsarus

Someone reviewed some of the wording of Rasmussen's questions in the last poll. They were pretty biased.

Stuff like:

"Do you approve of the job President Obama is doing, or do you think he could do better?"*

Of course 55% of the population thinks Obama could do a better job.

*No, this was not the question they used. It was three times as long but meant essentially the same thing. They obscured it in poor wording.

Further, if you check the official rasmussen page, their "Approval Index" is only based on the "Strongly Approve" versus the "Strongly Disapprove", rather than approval versus disapproval. That spread has been negative since July 1st.



Edited, Sep 2nd 2009 12:55am by bsphil

Let's ignore the Rasmussen numbers for the moment. Are you seriously looking at the second graphic on that page and saying that the numbers aren't trending downward for Obama? Cause you kinda have to be wearing special glasses not to see that the lines get closer as the graph moves to the right...


Rasmussen's numbers are lower than other polls, but it's a consistent offset. It's not like Rasmussen shows his numbers worsening while everyone else shows them staying the same. They're all showing a trend of lower approval and higher disapproval. The numbers aren't super important here. It's the trend that is.


While I didn't go check the methodology for every single polling source included in the RCP numbers, Rasmussen explains their outlying numbers as the result of polling only likely voters instead of all adults, and weighting the results based on political affiliation in relation to the existing ratio among all likely voters. It's not as useful as a thermometer of what "the people" think, but their methodology has been very accurate at predicting election results, which is what their primary focus seems to be.

At what point does this become facetious? Not that I put much stock in opinion polls and the like, but when can we officially declare that the "Blame It On the Last Guy" horse is dead?

I interpreted that statement to be about the numbers, not the trend. Certainly, it appeared to be some form of negation of the OP, so confirmation of the downward tend would seem to be an odd interpretation. Of course, we've got just the one sentence, so who knows what point he was trying to make?


I just wanted to make it clear that there has been a constant downward tend for Obama in this area since he was elected. Regardless of the specific poll and their specific numbers, this trend is reflected pretty much across the board.

Yeah, if the numbers were 40:7 in the other side's favor, I'd start making up excuses why that 7 was waayyyy more important than that 40 as well


Well, no I wouldn't. But that's because I'm not a tool.

Uh huh... of course. Credit Card Bill of Rights, small business loan programs, SCHIP (which passed with GOP support last time before Bush vetoed it), extra troops in Afghanistan... and those are just from the first handful.

But look, we both know you'll never actually say "Yeah, he's certainly kept a lot more promises than he's broken (and some of the 'broken' ones can still happen)" so feel free to keep beating that "Only THESE were the important ones!" drum.

Oh... umm... "lol!"

Didn't you know that the economic mess we're in now is Clinton's fault?

Edited, Sep 2nd 2009 11:59pm by Xsarus