Democratic Future: Cloudy With Continuing Doom

By 2008, the Republican Party all but killed itself with big spending, blatant influence pedaling and foreign-adventuring. Obama had a chance to drive a stake through the heart of this un-Republican Party, but he missed. Then, with amazing speed, the Democratic arrogance, missteps and total lunacies breathed life back into the Republicorpse. Now Obama and the Obamacrats are the ones staring at the inside of a coffin. Here are three reason why they aren’t getting out any time soon.

Obama’s Unrivalled Unpopularity

On Monday, Obama announced that he would run for a second term. Good luck. Incumbents tend to get a share of the vote roughly equal to their job approval ratings, especially when that approval rating remains consistent over time. Obama’s job approval rating has consistently hovered around 46% for about a year. This is signaling a huge disaster for Obama. And here’s why his popularity is so low:

● A full 68% think he’s too liberal (the kiss of death in America).
● Only 44% think he’s a good leader.
● Only 37% approve of his (mis)handling of national security.
● Only 34% approve of his (mis)handling of the economy.
● Only 29% think he’s ethical.

It’s going to be nearly impossible for Obama to rise again when people don’t like the way he handles foreign or domestic policy, when they think he’s a poor leader, when they think he’s too liberal and when they think he’s unethical. What can he possibly do to fix that?

Obama’s Policies Continue To Offend

What makes Obama’s unpopularity all the more solid is that it’s been earned through a series of bad policies and missteps that continue today and which will continue well into the future. Consider this:

● Obama’s big “achievement” is ObamaCare. The Democrats told themselves the public would warm to ObamaCare once they understood it. They haven’t: 58% want it repealed, only 39% want to keep it. Moreover, (1) 57% of voters know that ObamaCare will increase the deficit while only 17% stupidly expect it to reduce the deficit, (2) only 37% think ObamaCare is good for the country, and (3) 52% think it will make the quality of health care worse. So Obama’s biggest claim to fame is something that almost six in ten voters think is bad for the country, bad for medicine, and want repealed. I can’t image a worse claim to fame, except maybe being the guy who told Hitler “gee, you should try politics.”

● After decades of blasting Reagan for “deficit spending,” the Democrats showed what true deficit spending really means, as their binge turned our deficit into a genuine national security issue. The public is in open revolt over this, with 57% of Americans wanting deep cuts even if it means a government shutdown. Yet, 58% believe Obama will try to increase spending. And with the Democrats now pathologically opposing every proposed Republican cut, the public’s view will only harden.

● Yesterday, we talked about inflation. The stock market thinks it’s coming, as does Wal-Mart’s CEO, who fears the public will be quite upset by what is coming in this next year. The current inflation is the direct result of high fuel costs because we don’t exploit the resources we have and because we are burning corn to make ethanol.

So what do you do about that? Well, 55% of Americans want to see the US produce more domestic oil, only 24% oppose that. And 67% support offshore drilling. Another 55% favor drilling in ANWAR. But Obama opposes all of this and has banned offshore drilling along the East Coast and in the Gulf, he refuses to discuss ANWAR, he opposes clean coal, he’s given no support to natural gas, etc. In fact, all he’s done is favor fantasy solar energy and push for more ethanol. Stupid is as stupid does.

● One of the most telling statistics shows that under Obama, the public’s view of its own financial health has been in steady decline. When Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008, 43% of Americans said their personal finances were good or excellent. By the time Obama won the White House, this fell to 38%. Between then and now, this number has steadily fallen until it hit a new low of 30% this month. That’s not a number that will get you re-elected.

It’s no wonder that 69% of voters remain angry at the federal government. Obama’s policies fly in the face of the public’s concerns, beliefs and desires, and unless he completely abandons them and reverses direction, his support will continue to fall. And forget about the public giving the Democrats another majority any time soon.

The Very Wrong Message

Finally, I’ve written before how conservative the public really is (check out this chart). This never translated into anything for the Republicans because they haven’t been conservative themselves. But with the advent of the Tea Party, the public’s conservatism is starting to assert itself.

Right now, 48% of likely voters say that their views are closer to the Tea Party than they are to average members of Congress (compared to 22% who chose Congress). Moreover, 49% think the Tea Party is good for America, only 26% disagree. What’s more, these numbers are rather misleading because the Democrats are so insanely opposed to the Tea Party. If you just look at Republicans (69%) and Independents (62%), you will find the Tea Party has well above 60% support. Compare that with the fact that only 32% identify themselves as Republicans. Clearly, the Tea Party has easily become the most popular "party" in America.

Given this, it’s ironic that the Democratic plan for winning back the public is to claim that the Republicans are being held hostage by the Tea Party! This is truly stupid as the Tea Party is more popular than the Republican Party. In fact, if the Democrats weren’t saying this, the Republicans should be. This is great public relations.

Conclusion

Thus, what we have here are numbers that tell us that (1) the public does not trust Obama in the job, (2) they don’t trust his policies to work, (3) they think he will only make matters worse, (4) they feel personally endangered by his policies, (5) Obama and the Obamacrats are playing politics with the public’s biggest concerns, and (6) their political strategy is to attack the Republicans for being exactly what the public wants. Good luck making that work!