True North

The public relations push at the White House has really flopped.  Not only have the economic indicators made a mockery of Joe Biden’s “Recovery Summer,” even Barack Obama’s approval ratings refuse to respond.  The latest national survey from Quinnipiac of registered voters give Obama their lowest approval rating of his presidency, 44%, with 48% disapproving:

A year after President Barack Obama’s political honeymoon ended, his job approval rating has dropped to a negative 44 – 48 percent, his worst net score ever, and American voters say by a narrow 39 – 36 percent margin that they would vote for an unnamed Republican rather than President Obama in 2012, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Richard Cohen delivers one of the better analyses of why Obama finds himself falling in the polls and flailing as he approaches the midpoint of his term in office.  The truth is that no one really knows Obama, and his initial failures have eroded confidence in his abilities to lead the nation, a point Obama’s apologists obfuscate in a blizzard of Reagan references and polling comparisons.  However, as Bruce McQuain points out, Cohen comes to his conclusions by a process that should have taken place in 2007, when Democrats began rallying behind a candidate with no track record, no executive experience, and nothing but a narrative to recommend him for the highest executive office in the land: