Can Obama Persuade Voters to Stay the Course?

Latest poll shows declining confidence in the president, which could hurt Democrats in midterm elections.
Confidence in President Obama as the agent of change to restore the economy and chart a positive course has deteriorated to the point where nearly six in 10 voters say they “lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country,” according to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll. The president’s overall approval rating remains a relatively healthy 50 percent, with Democrats backing him (82 percent), independents faltering (47 percent), and Republicans unified in withholding their support (15 percent).

Obama inherited a big mess, and people are frustrated that he hasn’t fixed the economy. Counseling patience together with a show of resolve and determination helped President Reagan weather the storm in his first midterm election under conditions remarkably similar to today. Unemployment stood at 10.8 percent when voters went to the polls in November 1982, and Reagan’s numbers were 49-47, almost identical to Obama’s (50-47).

One key difference: Obama hasn’t done as good a job as Reagan of blaming his predecessor. Jimmy Carter for years served as the GOP’s version of Herbert Hoover while Obama let George W. Bush slip away into the ether, a former president so invisible that he might as well be in a witness-protection program. Bush’s upcoming book, Decision Points, won’t be released until a week after the November election, reinforcing the GOP’s decision to keep the unpopular president out of the mix in the midterms.

The gloomy numbers mean little for Obama looking forward to 2012 as they will change radically many times over before then. The disenchantment stems mainly from the things Obama had to do to stabilize the economy, and which have been tarred as government overreach even as they worked to pull the economy back from the abyss but fell short in making life better for average Americans. Campaigning on a slogan of things could have been worse is not a winning platform.

Obama has the right message in asking voters to make a choice: do they want to go back to the policies that got us into the mess, or stick with him—and the Democratic Congress—in getting us out of the mess, however slowly and painfully. Obama is on the campaign trail for his fellow Democrats, but when a president is not on the ballot, history tells us it’s hard for him to yank his party across the finish line. Reagan couldn’t do it in 1982, but his slogan, “Stay the Course,” kept Republicans together, and they lost a manageable 26 seats in the House and held their own in the Senate, a result that Obama would call a victory.

Latest poll shows declining confidence in the president, which could hurt Democrats in midterm elections.
Confidence in President Obama as the agent of change to restore the economy and chart a positive course has deteriorated to the point where nearly six in 10 voters say they “lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country,” according to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll. The president’s overall approval rating remains a relatively healthy 50 percent, with Democrats backing him (82 percent), independents faltering (47 percent), and Republicans unified in withholding their support (15 percent).

Obama inherited a big mess, and people are frustrated that he hasn’t fixed the economy. Counseling patience together with a show of resolve and determination helped President Reagan weather the storm in his first midterm election under conditions remarkably similar to today. Unemployment stood at 10.8 percent when voters went to the polls in November 1982, and Reagan’s numbers were 49-47, almost identical to Obama’s (50-47).

One key difference: Obama hasn’t done as good a job as Reagan of blaming his predecessor. Jimmy Carter for years served as the GOP’s version of Herbert Hoover while Obama let George W. Bush slip away into the ether, a former president so invisible that he might as well be in a witness-protection program. Bush’s upcoming book, Decision Points, won’t be released until a week after the November election, reinforcing the GOP’s decision to keep the unpopular president out of the mix in the midterms.

The gloomy numbers mean little for Obama looking forward to 2012 as they will change radically many times over before then. The disenchantment stems mainly from the things Obama had to do to stabilize the economy, and which have been tarred as government overreach even as they worked to pull the economy back from the abyss but fell short in making life better for average Americans. Campaigning on a slogan of things could have been worse is not a winning platform.

Obama has the right message in asking voters to make a choice: do they want to go back to the policies that got us into the mess, or stick with him—and the Democratic Congress—in getting us out of the mess, however slowly and painfully. Obama is on the campaign trail for his fellow Democrats, but when a president is not on the ballot, history tells us it’s hard for him to yank his party across the finish line. Reagan couldn’t do it in 1982, but his slogan, “Stay the Course,” kept Republicans together, and they lost a manageable 26 seats in the House and held their own in the Senate, a result that Obama would call a victory.

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