How Barack Obama Became Mr. Unpopular

[GlennO]

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."

(See TIME's 2008 Person of the Year: Barack Obama.)

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.


More at LINK
Obama Unpopular Ahead of Midterms: Will the GOP Benefit? - TIME

[mattfivefour]

I find this paragraph in the article particularly telling, a glimpse of the heart of the issue—

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."

[MikeD]

I found and read this article from a link on the Drudge Report. And, as you stated Adrian, I too was somewhat blown away by this very odd statement:

: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."

I guess the days of actually studying up on the person you're voting for is a thing of the past. Especially these days with the advent of the Internet a person honestly has NO EXCUSE as to NOT know about the person they're considering voting for. As history has shown, IGNORANCE can, and most often is, a very costly thing.

[Carl]

I found and read this article from a link on the Drudge Report. And, as you stated Adrian, I too was somewhat blown away by this very odd statement:

: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."

I guess the days of actually studying up on the person you're voting for is a thing of the past. Especially these days with the advent of the Internet a person honestly has NO EXCUSE as to NOT know about the person they're considering voting for. As history has shown, IGNORANCE can, and most often is, a very costly thing.

That is precisely the image I get of Obama's falling popularity. People are reviewing in their minds what was promised and what has been delivered.

[GlennO]

This is a good thing The framers knew we would err but would recover!

[micah719]

That man gave me the heebie-jeebies the first moment I heard of him and the first cursory examination confirmed the impression, and events have further reinforced this. Judgement is coming for the USA, and obama is a part of it just as folks like Saul and Ahab and Herod were early rewards to the Jews for their rejection of The King and His Word. Europe has had its own troublesome individuals and the outlook is for a real doozie to come along soon with his carpet bag of woe. What will the audacious one do when things get really bleak for him? Will the puppet masters remove him and install another manchurian, or is the time coming for a dictatorship?

[Navyblue]

If BHO cannot talk when his teleprompter is broken, how do you expect him to generate jobs when his 'Telejobber' is broken??

Common, folks, give da poor guy a break. Dubs on the right arm.

[GlennO]

Sefan

Judgement is coming for the USA, and obama is a part of it just as folks like Saul and Ahab and Herod were early rewards to the Jews for their rejection of The King and His Word.

Oh yeah...smack-down a-comin'