Over the past few weeks, the news media have been full of reports of surveys from The New York Times, CBS News and Quinnipiac University which reveal that President Obama’s approval ratings have sunk to new lows, especially among whites. The Times and CBS polls both report that Obama ended his first year in office with the lowest approval rating of any president among whites in the years that these surveys have asked the question.
Let’s not question the results of these surveys, but rather look at how they were constructed and what they don’t tell us. The survey questions ask specifically about how Obama has handled key issues, e.g., health care, the economy and terrorism (on which the president gets his top scores). But the survey does not ask why people don’t approve of the job President Obama is doing in any given area. How many don’t like Obama because his economic stimulus plan represents government intervention and how many don’t like it because he didn’t invest enough in job-producing activities?
This approach allows the mainstream news media to continue tacking right in setting the agenda for discourse, helped by Quinnipiac’s spokesperson who asserts that the main reason for Obama’s low ratings is that he has lost the support of the moderate white male, moderate in this case meaning right of the decidedly centrist president. Yet the survey offers no proof of this assertion, because the survey does not go deep enough into the reason people oppose the president.
Take for example Charles Blow’s article titled Lady Blahblah on the January 16 Op/Ed page of the New York Times, which discusses the surveys in connection with Sarah Palin taking a commentator’s job at Fox News. Blow assumes that many if not most of the white disapproving of Obama are waiting to watch Palin on Fox.
I think in this case, Blow blew it.
I live in a city that’s more than 70% Democratic in a blue state and most of the white people I know are disappointed with Obama, but for these reasons:
- He has not pulled enough troops out of Iraq.
- He is sending more troops to Afghanistan.
- Guantanamo prison is still open.
- He is not doing enough to help victims of the recession and create new jobs.
- He has not aggressively pursued more regulation of the real estate and banking industries.
- He has not more aggressively pursued health care reform.
None of these people are going to listen to Palin. But none of these surveys distinguish this group from whites to the right of Obama.
Understand that I am arguing by anecdote, but I do it not to prove that the disaffected are left of President Obama, but to suggest that no one has yet proved that the disaffected are right of the president and ripe for picking by the Tea and Republican parties. The media and most public forums just make this assumption in their analysis of the polls and for one reason: to keep moving the terms of discourse rightward.
Excellent story once again. Thanks a lot:)
This article must be headline news Thanks
Good day , I’m a college English major and I’m learning a lot about writing by reading websites. I really enjoy your style of writing. It’s very easy to understand but with excellent details. Your choice of words makes it easy to read and to follow. That’s a huge portion of writing. Your readers have to be able to understand what you’re saying and it has to be interesting. You need to challenge your viewers , so they will come back for more. You do a good job with all of these topics. Thx!
You certainly deserve a round of applause for your post and more specifically, your blog in general. Very high quality material.
Excellent post I must say.. Simple but yet interesting and engaging.. Keep up the awesome work!
Thanks for the informative post. My wife’s calling me for dinner So I require to operate off without having reading as much as I’d like. But I set your blog on my RSS feed so that I can read a lot more.
Hello could I quote some of the material here in this blog if I reference you with a link back to your site?
Thanks for posting about this, I would love to read more….
Great content man i will come back soon
I was very pleased to find this site.I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.
I have to admit I don’t always agree with you, but in this case you really hit the nail on point.
You certainly deserve a round of applause for your post and more specifically, your blog in general. Very high quality material
Very informative post. Thanks for taking the time to share your view with us.
This is my first time I have visited here. I found a lot of interesting information in your blog. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one! keep up the impressive work.
Arrg, my mouse got jammed. What I was about to say, was that this is a terrific post. Very insightful and informative at the same time.
LOL! I so love Barrack Obama!
I don’t care what people say, but he is a great example to us all.
I find myself coming to your blog more and more often to the point where my visits are almost daily now!
I just sent this post to a bunch of my friends as I agree with most of what you’re saying here and the way you’ve presented it is awesome.
I enjoyed this. Like your blog design too.
I find myself coming to your blog more and more often to the point where my visits are almost daily now!
I’ve been visiting your blog for a while now and I always find a gem in your new posts. Thanks for sharing.
Very informative post. Thanks for taking the time to share your view with us.
How-do-you-do, just needed you to know I have added your site to my Google bookmarks because of your extraordinary blog layout. But seriously, I think your site has one of the freshest theme I’ve came across. It really helps make reading your blog a lot easier.
Obama may be in a position to be pressurised. Well this is the survey result and there is truth in it. Hope obama rectifies it in the next year’s regimen. thanks for this article. It was very informative on the health care too
If possible, as you gain information, please add more related content to your blog as I already bookmarked you and I intend to come back. I have found it extremely useful.
Has the hype of Obama gone down or does it remain still the same ?
Your blog writing is very good!Hello, I have browsed most of your posts. This post is probably where I got the most useful information for my research. Thanks for posting, maybe we can see more on this. The descriptions are literature
Pretty insightful post. Never thought that it was this simple after all. I had spent a good deal of my time looking for someone to explain this subject clearly and you’re the only one that ever did that. Kudos to you! Keep it up
Good luck getting people behind this one. Though you make some VERY fascinating points, youre going to have to do more than bring up a few things that may be different than what weve already heard. What are trying to say here? What do you want us to think? It seems like you cant really get behind a unique thought. Anyway, thats just my opinion.
Very nice and helpful information has been given in this article. I like the way you explain the things. Keep posting. Thanks. . .
Excellent post. I want to thank you for this informative read, I really appreciate sharing this great post. Keep up your work. . . .
When will the government discover that we are not looking for these folks to become involved with healthcare. Virtually every single big brother program is a economic wreck, and tax payers are usually kept holding the bag. If they can not do the job that they were being chosen to accomplish, they’re going to learn in November that americans are generally sick of their problems and can supplant them all.
Hello webmaster I like your post ….
Hi there, I found your blog via Google while searching for first aid for a heart attack and your post looks very interesting for me.
Add one more person to your anecdotal list. You give the reasons that Obama has disappointed me. But Palin? Scary.