"RBnDFW" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
Most of us feel it's a lot better now. That's why Obama keeps having
positive approval ratings.
Wow, I'm almost speechless.
In what universe is this, exactly?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...oval-1044.html
It's at best a dead heat.
Two points you guys keep missing: First, positive approval ratings mean that
more people approve than disapprove. It's been steadily in Obama's favor,
except for a few days in April, EVERY DAY SINCE HE WAS ELECTED. You happened
to pick one day right after a Rasmussen poll was added in. The result is
that it came out even on that one day. I'm going to hope you know what that
means. If not, we can discuss it. In any case, check it again in a couple of
days. Even FOX and the WSJ have been in the middle of the pack, and weigh
positively from Rasmussen by 5 - 10 points, consistently.
Look at the graph on that page. You'll see that Obama has been above the
line right from the start.
The key point, though, is that you're responding to the wrong point. I said
that "most of us feel it's a lot better now." Look at Bush's approval rating
near the end of his term (Gallup has a nifty Flash tool from which you can
learn a lot -- such as the fact that Obama's approval rating have been
higher than Reagan's were for the past 190 days. You can play with it at:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/pr...l-center.aspx). Then
look at Obama's now. Bush was lower than Obama at the same point in their
terms, right before 9/11. You know what happened then. But near the end of
his second term, Bush was down around 30% at the time of the last election
(he eventually dropped to the mid-20s). You'd have to research this point,
but I suspect that part of Obama's positive rating is the result of people
mentally comparing him with Bush.
So most people are rating Obama much higher now than they rated Bush at the
time of the election -- which was the time we're comparing. That's what I
mean by "feel a lot better now."
Do you see what's going on here? If not, we can continue.
All the problems of the world were, and many still are, blamed on Bush.
He had an uncanny ability to create problems for everyone. He came from a
wealthy family; his views were those of his wealthy friends and
environment. To this day it appears that he just doesn't get the fact
that making the rich richer was not the right policy for the country.
"..this country experienced its longest run of uninterrupted job growth -
52 straight months, with 8.3 million jobs created.
Actually, less than 7.4 million net jobs (after firings and layoffs), while
population increased by close to 17 million. That's not bad -- or it
wouldn't be, if the income distribution didn't reflect a large increase to
the top few percent, while the middle class remained fairly stagnant. In
other words, there was a disproportionate percentage of low-wage jobs in
that number.
This reflected six consecutive years of economic growth from the Fourth
Quarter of 2001 until the Fourth Quarter of 2007. From 2000 to 2007, real
GDP grew by more than 17 percent, a remarkable gain of nearly 2.1 trillion
dollars. ""
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art..._the_real.html
Yes, I've read Gillespie's article. Some of it is right, some is
intentionally misleading -- especially the GDP number. Unka' George can
explain that one to you, if he has the patience. By the end of Bush's term,
more than 40% of the corporate profit in the US was in the financial
industry. Much of the GDP "growth" came from there, too. GDP of the
"services" industries (read, mostly finance) is 76.9% of our economy.
Agriculture is 1.2%; industry is 21.9%. Some "growth," eh?
Republican politicians act as if they'd be happier in a totalitarian
regime. They clearly don't believe in representative democracy or
elections. They want mob rule by polls when they're out, and to ignore
public opinion when they're in. One trouble they're having right now is
that, despite their prevarications, Obama's favorable rating is still
positive. Even the Fox News poll had him at +2% as of yesterday:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...oval-1044.html
The trendline is what you need to be looking at. scroll down
I'm aware of the trendline. It's very similar to Reagan's. That's what
happens when you start out in a recession and unemployment is very high.
Given that, it's amazing -- or you should be amazed -- that half or more of
the adult population still gives Obama a positive rating. You would expect
something like Reagan's numbers, which were lower.
--
Ed Huntress