Independent voters are taking a second look at President Barack Obama and they don’t like what they see.
Obama’s popularity among Americans now stands at 56 percent — his lowest since taking office — and some predict the President’s job approval rating could fall below 50 percent by Labor Day — a monumental slide for the young leader.
While White House spokesmen claim no concern about the falling poll numbers, Democratic politial stragegists privatley tell Capitol Hill Blue they are "extremely worried" that Obama’s extremes have worn thin with voters.
"An increasing number of votes now see Obama as just another politician who said one thing to win office and then set about on an entirely different agenda," says one strategist. "He’s setting the stage for a GOP comeback in the 2010 midterm elections. Even worse, he setting himself up to be a one-term President."
In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest.
Obama’s job approval rating hit a — still healthy — low of 56 percent in the Gallup Poll on Wednesday. And pollsters are debating whether Obama’s expansive and expensive policy proposals or the ground-level realities of a still-faltering economy are driving the falling numbers.
But a source of the shift appears to be independent voters, who seem to be responding to Republican complaints of excessive spending and government control.
“This is a huge sea change that is playing itself out in American politics,” said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. “Independents who had become effectively operational Democrats in 2006 and 2008 are now up for grabs and are trending Republican.
While Obamacons claim Gallup’s numbers always trend to the right, Schoen is a well-respected Democratic pollsters and often spots trends in the early stages. He correctly identified voter shifts that led to big Democratic victories in 2006.
Increasingly, Americans wonder if they bought a pig in a poke by electing Obama. He campaigned as a moderate but his poicies reflect tradtional liberal Democratic thinking at a time when polls suggest voters are trending back to the right.
From today’s Rasmussen Reports:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 32% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –5.
The number who strongly disapprove inched up another point to the highest level measured to date and the overall Approval Index is at the lowest level yet for Obama.
Bottom line: Obama is in trouble. And, to use his own words about the economy, it’s going to get worse.
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