Now as far as some more right-wing citizens were concerned of course the President lacked legitimacy in the first place so they saw him as a lame duck from the start despite being elected twice by comfortable margins. But some recent events and data should give the President and his supporters, if not fits, cause for serious concern.
President Obama hit a new low in support, according to an NBC/WSJ poll. President Obama’s job approval rating sank to a new low of 41 percent in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Tuesday, forecasting political headwinds for the Democratic Party in the months leading up to November’s midterm elections.
Forty-eight percent of respondents in the survey said that they are less likely to vote for a candidate who is a solid supporter of of Obama, versus 26 percent who said they are more likely to support a candidate that supports the president. More than a third of respondents remained neutral, with 41 percent saying that their vote will have nothing to do with the president.
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Now from a purely selfish standpoint this may not matter too much to the President. We don't have a parliamentary system with votes of confidence or party leaders being removed by their party. Short of impeachment and conviction President Obama will serve out his term. But this matters a great deal to Senate and House Democrats, who are starting to see less of a downside to opposing the President. This was made clear in the successful (and shameful) disposal of the nomination of Debo Adegbile to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the similar ominous storm clouds gathering around the nomination of Vivek Murthy to be the Surgeon General. Now regardless of whether you think that either man would have been good at his job the point remains that it is Senate Democrats who either wavered or led the charge against both men. Those aren't the actions of people who think that President Obama is popular or that they need to worry about opposing the President. There is no price to pay for opposing President Obama. He talks tough but seems to be at a loss how to deal with determined opposition. Again, it is a little early to be having these sorts of problems with your own party. Part of this may be coming from a long held belief among some Democrats that President Obama has short coattails and so they have to look out for themselves, politically speaking.
WASHINGTON — Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed about their midterm election fortunes amid President Obama’s sinking approval ratings, a loss in a special House election in Florida last week, and millions of dollars spent by Republican-aligned groups attacking the new health law. The combination has led to uncharacteristic criticism of Mr. Obama and bitter complaints that his vaunted political organization has done little to help the party’s vulnerable congressional candidates. Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress, state party officials and strategists revealed a new urgency about the need to address the party’s prospects. One Democratic lawmaker, who asked not to be identified, said Mr. Obama was becoming “poisonous” to the party’s candidates.
At the same time, Democrats are pressing senior aides to Mr. Obama for help from the political network. When two senior White House officials — Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director, and Phil Schiliro, the health care adviser — went to the Capitol late last month to address Senate Democrats about the Affordable Care Act, they were met with angry questions about why Mr. Obama’s well-funded advocacy group, Organizing for Action, was not airing commercials offering them cover on the health law....
