Last week, I wrote about how Obama’s crumbling credibility will damage Democrat hopes in 2014. But a president facing second term turmoil is nothing new.
As Mr. Obama concludes the fifth year of his presidency, he is faced with same political reality his predecessor, Mr. Bush faced as public opinion increasingly turned against a prolonged war in Iraq, leading to a decline in his approval ratings and public trust in his handling of the government.
This past Thursday, CBS News released its latest polling numbers (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57613067/poll-obamacare-support-obama-approval-sink-to-new-lows/) which showed that following the President Obama’s administration botched handling of the Affordable Care Act rollout, aka ObamaCare, that his disapproval rating is at an all-time high of 57 percent.
Mr. Obama’s approval rating is still higher than the policy his administration has been most tied to, ObamaCare, which only 31 percent of those polled approved of. The fall in the president’s approval rating falls in line with the polling done by Gallup last week (http://www.gallup.com/poll/165833/obama-image-strong-decisive-leader-takes-hit.aspx), which showed that only 50 percent of those polled (a 5 percent drop from the previous month) view President Obama as “Honest and Trustworthy”, while only 47 percent viewed him as a “Strong and Decisive Leader” (a 6 percent drop from the previous month).
These numbers are strikingly similar to the political landscape Mr. Bush faced at this same point in his presidency (Bush -18 vs Obama -15). http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_bush_first_term_job_approval.html. The polling this past month continues to pose a potentially dangerous political path for Mr. Obama and the Democrat Party to navigate as they enter the 2014 election cycle, hoping to retain the United States Senate.
In 2006, where Republicans saw massive loses in the United States House of Representatives and US Senate, exit polling showed that approval rating on the war in Iraq was -14. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html .
If the current political trends hold and the president’s hallmark policy, ObamaCare, continues to steadily decline towards the ibis, currently sitting at -22, the mentality for the president’s administration likely will shift towards survival mode as the Democrat Party hopes to not be completely sunk by the proverbial anchor that the Affordable Healthcare Act has become.