How Barack Obama Became Mr. Unpopular

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Time Magazine:

The Barack Obama that most Hoosiers remember voting for can still be found on YouTube. He stands before a cheering Elkhart high school gymnasium in August 2008, tireless, aspirational, promising a new America of jobs and hope. "We can choose another future," says the newcomer with the funny name. "So I ask you to join me."

Today that view of Obama is harder to find in Indiana. A couple of weeks back and a dozen miles west of Elkhart, hundreds gathered in another school gym — except this time it was for a job fair. With the local unemployment rate above 12% and rising again this summer, about a third of the employer display tables stood empty. Julie Griffin, who voted for Obama in '08, sat down at the room's edge, well dressed and discouraged. After 23 years as a payroll administrator at a local RV plant, she got laid off 18 months ago. "Really, what has he been doing?" she said when I asked about Obama's efforts to help people like her. "I guess I don't know what he is doing."

Across the gym floor, Joe Donnelly, Elkhart's pro-life, pro-gun Democratic Congressman, worked the crowd. He was part of the moderate wave that won Congress for Nancy Pelosi in '06, and he was re-elected with 67% of the vote while campaigning for Obama in '08. The President has since returned to the region three times, but Donnelly is nonetheless fighting for his political life. In a recent television ad, an unflattering photo of Obama and Pelosi flashes while Donnelly condemns "the Washington crowd." This is basically a Democratic campaign slogan now: Don't blame me for Obama and Pelosi. "I'm not one of them," Donnelly told me when I caught up with him. "I'm one of us."

This shift in perception — from Obama as political savior to Obama as creature of Washington — can be seen elsewhere. When Obama arrived in office in January '09, his Gallup approval rating stood at 68%, a high for a newly elected leader not seen since John Kennedy in 1961. Today Obama's job approval has been hovering in the mid-40s, which means that at least 1 in 4 Americans has changed his or her mind. The plunge has been particularly dramatic among independents, whites and those under age 30. With midterm elections just nine weeks off, instead of the generational transformation some Democrats predicted after 2008, the President's party teeters on the brink of a broad setback in November, including the possible loss of both houses of Congress. By a 10-point margin, people say they will vote for Republicans over Democrats in Congress, the largest such gap ever recorded by Gallup.

White House aides explain this change as a largely inevitable reflection of the cycles of history. Midterms are almost always bad for first-term Presidents, and worse in hard times. "The public is rightly frustrated and angry with the economy," says Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's communications director, explaining the White House line. "There is no small tactical shift we could have made at any point that would have solved that problem." In more confiding moments, aides admit that the peak of Obama's popularity may have been inflated, a fleeting result of elation at the prospect of change and national pride in electing the first African-American President. As one White House aide puts it, "It was sort of fake."

But while these explanations may be valid, they are also incomplete. A sense of disappointment, bordering on betrayal, has been growing across the country, especially in moderate states like Indiana, where people now openly say they didn't quite understand the President they voted for in 2008. The fear most often expressed is that Obama is taking the country somewhere they don't want to go. "We bought what he said. He offered a lot of hope," says Fred Ferlic, an Obama voter and orthopedic surgeon in South Bend who has since soured on his choice. Ferlic talks about the messy compromises in health care reform, his sense of an inhospitable business climate and the growth of government spending under Obama. "He's trying to Europeanize us, and the Europeans are going the other way," continues Ferlic, a former Democratic campaign donor who plans to vote Republican this year. "The entire American spirit is being broken."
________

If TIME has turned on Obama, then he's got a problem...

[Casino67]

At first the honeymoon, then slight bickering, then downright throw the dishes fight. And then, after four years, the divorce.

 

I think we are rapidly going into the throw the dishes stage.

 

The cycles can be expanded, but I feel sort of tired.

[Argyle58]

At first the honeymoon, then slight bickering, then downright throw the dishes fight. And then, after four years, the divorce.

 

I think we are rapidly going into the throw the dishes stage.

 

The cycles can be expanded, but I feel sort of tired.

 

Let's just hope we don't have to go through the physical abuse phase.......he's got more to put into play than we do.

[Casino67]

TIME:

The Barack Obama that most Hoosiers remember voting for can still be found on YouTube. He stands before a cheering Elkhart high school gymnasium in August 2008, tireless, aspirational, promising a new America of jobs and hope. "We can choose another future," says the newcomer with the funny name. "So I ask you to join me."

Today that view of Obama is harder to find in Indiana. A couple of weeks back and a dozen miles west of Elkhart, hundreds gathered in another school gym — except this time it was for a job fair. With the local unemployment rate above 12% and rising again this summer, about a third of the employer display tables stood empty. Julie Griffin, who voted for Obama in '08, sat down at the room's edge, well dressed and discouraged. After 23 years as a payroll administrator at a local RV plant, she got laid off 18 months ago. "Really, what has he been doing?" she said when I asked about Obama's efforts to help people like her. "I guess I don't know what he is doing.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2015629,00.html#ixzz0yUwIxrga

[Argyle58]

When I first saw this article a couple of days ago I thought I had read the title wrong, but yes, the same magazine that named Zero MAN OF THE YEAR for 2008 is now pointing out his flaws.

[Casino67]

Other than MSNBC, is anyone defending him anymore?

[SrWoodchuck]

Other than MSNBC, is anyone defending him anymore?

 

 

HAMAS.

[Casino67]

Other than MSNBC, is anyone defending him anymore?

 

 

HAMAS.

:lol:

 

Crap, I see this is a dupe post too. I gotta quit doing puzzles. MOD, can the two posts be combined? Thanks.

[pollyannaish]

Crap, I see this is a dupe post too. I gotta quit doing puzzles. MOD, can the two posts be combined? Thanks.

 

Consider it done! Never fear, we're here, so you can keep doing puzzles! Happy weekend, friend!

[Valin]

Time:

Michael Scherer
9/2/20

The Barack Obama that most Hoosiers remember voting for can still be found on YouTube. He stands before a cheering Elkhart high school gymnasium in August 2008, tireless, aspirational, promising a new America of jobs and hope. "We can choose another future," says the newcomer with the funny name. "So I ask you to join me."

Today that view of Obama is harder to find in Indiana. A couple of weeks back and a dozen miles west of Elkhart, hundreds gathered in another school gym — except this time it was for a job fair. With the local unemployment rate above 12% and rising again this summer, about a third of the employer display tables stood empty. Julie Griffin, who voted for Obama in '08, sat down at the room's edge, well dressed and discouraged. After 23 years as a payroll administrator at a local RV plant, she got laid off 18 months ago. "Really, what has he been doing?" she said when I asked about Obama's efforts to help people like her. "I guess I don't know what he is doing."

Across the gym floor, Joe Donnelly, Elkhart's pro-life, pro-gun Democratic Congressman, worked the crowd. He was part of the moderate wave that won Congress for Nancy Pelosi in '06, and he was re-elected with 67% of the vote while campaigning for Obama in '08. The President has since returned to the region three times, but Donnelly is nonetheless fighting for his political life. In a recent television ad, an unflattering photo of Obama and Pelosi flashes while Donnelly condemns "the Washington crowd." This is basically a Democratic campaign slogan now: Don't blame me for Obama and Pelosi. "I'm not one of them," Donnelly told me when I caught up with him. "I'm one of us."

(Snip)
(Note: Click on link for video)

[Valin]

Op Ed piece.....

 

American Thinker: Obama: Mr. Unpopular? - It's the People's Fault!

Michael Fraley

In Time Magazine this week, Michael Sherer examines "How Barack Obama Became Mr. Unpopular". Could it possibly be due to a string of broken promises and lies? Unprecedented spending? Government overreach? The ramming through of unpopular legislation? Nope - it's all the people's fault.

 

... trust in the federal government was at a historic low, dropping to around 25%, where it still remains. Yet Obama has offered government as the primary solution to most of the nation's woes, calling for big new investments in health care, education, infrastructure and energy. Some voters bucked at the incongruity, repeatedly telling pollsters that even programs that have clearly helped the economy, like the $787 billion stimulus, did no such thing.

 

 

Yes that's right: Obama has called for "investments" and programs that have "clearly helped the economy." But those people, ungrateful lot, just cannot get past their perceived "incongruity." Come on people, don't you remember?! Hope and change? The One we've been waiting for?

 

(Snip)

[pollyannaish]

Valin

 

Obama may be Mr. UnPopular, but this article isn't unpopular at TRR!

 

 

I merged your post with the others—just wanted to let you know. Thanks for posting it, and the op-ed piece is excellent.