A House Divided

The Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket" blog focuses today on Barack Obama's declining approval numbers.

The results of one survey — from CNN.com — seem to be particularly vexing, for both CNN.com and the writers for the Times.

CNN.com reports a "split decision" over the Obama presidency at the one–year mark — the raw numbers actually give a slight edge to those disapproving, 48% to 47%, but when you consider there is a three–point margin for error, a whole range of actual outcomes becomes possible.

The point, CNN.com, which has been among the most enthusiastic of broadcasting's Obama cheerleaders, grudgingly acknowledges, is that "the economy by far remains issue No. 1 with Americans." Therefore, CNN.com concludes, "The dominance of domestic issues in importance is most likely a contributing factor to the slight dip in Obama's overall approval rating."

This doesn't surprise me, and I don't really feel it should surprise anyone else, either. I was writing about the perils of prolonged unemployment before Obama took the oath of office.

About a year ago, I wrote about how being out of work robs people of their dignity and makes them feel powerless. More people are out of work today than in January 2009, and when people feel powerless, they lash out at the party that is in power.

So I'm not surprised that the public opinion surveys are picking up two definite trends — persistent upticks in disapproval, persistent declines in the approval numbers — even though both CNN.com and the Los Angeles Times seem shocked and awed by this revelation.

Contributing to the drumbeat that disturbs Democrats is a report from Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in the Wall Street Journal. Quinnipiac's latest survey confirms CNN.com's conclusions: "A year into his presidency," Brown writes, "Barack Obama gets a decidedly mixed report card from the American people. His ratings are trending lower and for the first time as many Americans rate his job performance negatively as positively."

The Associated Press reports that Obama admitted to People magazine, in an interview last week, that he has not brought the country together.

Thanks for that update, Captain Obvious — as one of Obama's longtime media supporters, Maureen Dowd, labeled him in her recent New York Times column about the near–miss terror incident on Christmas Day — which, interestingly, grabbed people's attention but does not appear to have played much of a role in either of those poll results.

Forty years ago, when President–elect Richard Nixon talked about bringing the country together, he was speaking mostly of healing the wounds inflicted by the Vietnam War. There are more sources of the wounds today, but the still open, still bleeding wound of excessive unemployment affects more Americans directly than any other.

In spite of the bad news coming from these polls, the administration gets a warm fuzzy from Mark Mellman in The Hill. Mellman wishes Obama a happy anniversary — even though his actual anniversary in office is still a week away.

"All Americans can remain proud of electing a president whose father was a Kenyan immigrant," Mellman writes, adding that it "speaks to the goodness of our nation."

He also insists on offering built–in excuses.

First, he reminds readers of Mario Cuomo's "famous distinction between the poetry of campaigning and the prose of governing."

Obama, he says, "has handled this transition well, though a few of his supporters have found it more jarring." I'd say it's been jarring for more than just his supporters — or simply "a few" of them. "Their expressions of disappointment," Mellman continues, "reflect a failure to comprehend the implications of Cuomo's critical distinction."

Mellman also provides some cover for the administration through the words of a song from "Jesus Christ Superstar," which is appropriate, I suppose, given the many references to "The One" in the 2008 general election campaign.

"He’s a man, he’s just a man ..."

Mellman reminds readers (well, I presume it is a reminder — I never read it myself) that he predicted a year ago that Obama's approval ratings would be below 50% by now.

"Barack Obama is a special and extraordinary talented president, but he is just a man," Mellman writes, "buffeted by the same political forces that have afflicted his predecessors and will bedevil his successors."

Well, the house remains divided. As president, Obama must do something about that because, as Lincoln said, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

The Stormy Present

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"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present."

Abraham Lincoln

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In Massachusetts, voting has begun. Democrats and Republicans will be choosing their candidates today to run in a six–week general election campaign (along with an independent) to fill the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by the death of Edward M. Kennedy in August.

Taking this step toward choosing the successor to a man who spent nearly half a century in the Senate seems like kind of a strange — and yet appropriate — way to bring this decade to an end.

I remember, as if it were yesterday, something I said to a co–worker more than nine years ago, when the Bush and Gore campaigns were locked in their legal battle over the state of Florida — that the eventual winner of the election might regret being the winner. At the time, I was thinking of the narrow congressional divisions, but, in hindsight, I may have been right for reasons I didn't consider.

Whether I expressed that thought verbally or not, it is one I have had before, usually following presidential elections. In fact, I had that thought last year, even though Barack Obama's victory was being hailed by friend and foe alike, and his party had achieved large congressional majorities. I remember wondering, on Election Night 2008, how Obama was going to achieve the delicate balancing act that would be necessary to revive the economy, put millions of Americans back to work and successfully end two wars while not alienating any of his supporters — or further alienating his detractors.

The answer was simple. "The stormy present," as Lincoln called it, was too stormy. It couldn't be done.

Or could it?

We are now a week removed from the president's address at West Point, in which he announced plans to escalate U.S. troop involvement in Afghanistan, and we're starting to see the first results of polls on that decision. Quinnipiac reports that "[p]ublic support for the war in Afghanistan is up nine percentage points in the last three weeks, as American voters say 57–35 percent that fighting the war is the right thing to do."

Quinnipiac also reports that approval of Obama's handling of the war is up, and three–fifths of respondents support his plan to begin withdrawing troops in 2011, although a plurality believe Obama won't be able to keep that pledge.

On the other hand ...

Poll respondents also are skeptical — by a wide margin — about whether Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize he will receive this week. Perhaps that is because it is hard to reconcile the notion of a Nobel Peace Prize winner escalating a war.

Kennedy's successor — whoever he or she may be — will be confronted with the problems posed by the stormy present. No doubt there will be those among the new senator's constituents who will long for the seasoned leadership Kennedy could provide.

But that is not an option.

The option — aside from the one the voters have in choosing the nominees — belonged to those who decided to seek the Senate seat.

We won't know until Jan. 19, 2010, which one the voters will choose to serve the remainder of Kennedy's term.

And I have to wonder if the eventual winner might wish he/she hadn't won.

Which reminds me of another Lincoln quote, which may prove to be more appropriate than any of the candidates in today's primaries would care to admit:

"If it weren't for the honor of the thing," Lincoln said, citing a man who was tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, "I'd rather walk."