Presidential Approval for November

President Obama continue to scrape the low point of his Presidency in terms of public approval, although he consistently this month has remained just above his November vote margins. Media reports have talked a great deal about him breaking the "50% approval" threshold in major polls, including the Gallup poll (which many, myself included, consider the gold standard in polling.) While this is true, the more relevant number is his approve minus disapprove and that is holding at around 8%. His monthly tracking is below.



On a monthly basis, with November nearly over, his numbers stand at +8.8%, a 2.4% drop-off versus October, making November his worst month since August, the last month of his awful summer drop-off.



Several trends have emerged over the past 10 months of poling. I've discussed a number of them before, but I'll highlight them now:
(1) President Obama has yet to have a month with any significant month-on-month improvement. He has had months were he has held flat or gained marginally and months that he has lost ground, but none where he has posted a statistically significant gain. He has now reached a critical inflection point where if he does not have such a month, he will slip below his November margin and, within a few month, slip into negative territory.
(2) There seems to be something of a soft floor surrounding his November vote total. To me this indicates that those who did not vote for the President but were willing to give him a chance have largely been lost in the bitterly partisan tone in Washington but that those who voted for the President have by and large stuck with him.
(3) As has been noted by CNN, the President seems to drop in approval every time he goes abroad. Perhaps this is because of some of his visual gaffes (such as the bow/handshake) or because Americans feel he should be focused on the US economy, but it does seem to be a consistent theme. Perhaps he should spend a little more time at home until unemployment drops.

The GOP feels like they have momentum now and there is some evidence in these data to suggest that. But it would be over-playing their hand to assume that opposing the President is now a popular position. They won't win in 2012 with the voters they got in 2008, they need to find a way to dislodge the moderates who supported the President. Time will tell if they can do that, but they haven't succeeded, at least yet.

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The Tough Road Ahead for President Obama

It is going to be a trying few months for the President. Consider:
(1) He is about to announce an Afghanistan strategy that will infuriate his own party. Liberals will be outraged that we are sending more troops to Afghanistan, while Conservatives will be likely only lukewarm in their support, feeling that he should have reached this conclusion earlier.
(2) He needs every last one of those members of his own party to pass health care reform legislation in the Senate. He also needs to convince moderates like Sen. Blanche Lincoln (AR) to vote with him, possibly at the expense of her own job.
(3) While unemployment appears to be stabilizing (at least from the latest unemployment benefit numbers), it is stabilizing at a very high level, with pretty low prospects for it being recovered in time for November.
(4) His third domestic priority, environmental legislation took a huge blow when hacked e-mails from major scientists appeared to reveal a conspiracy to squash anti-global warming scientific evidence. The perception is horrible, regardless of the scientific reality.
(5) His approval in many polls has dipped below the "magic" (in the eyes of the media, not myself) 50% threshold, although his approve minus disapprove remains positive.
(6) The Secret Service is apparently too inept to keep uninvited guests out of his parties -- not a comforting thought if you are the first black US President who sees death threats posted on the internet daily.
(7) Everybody still hates Tim Geithner
(8) You can't seem to stop committing gaffes on foreign soil (bow and handshake, ipods to the Queen of England, etc.) -- and we all know the media would much rather talk about that than substance

A tough road indeed. Poll numbers updated next post (still painfully recreating my poll database from scratch).

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Afghan Troop Decision Tuesday, Giving Thanks

Obama to Announce Afghan Strategy Next Tuesday
Numerous news sources have confirmed that President Obama will announce his long-awaited decision around troop levels and war strategy in Afghanistan next Tuesday. Reportedly, this will consist of a 34,000 troop increase (in addition to the 68,000 or so troops already in Afghanistan, up from 45,000 or so at the start of his Presidency) along with a request to NATO for an additional 6,000 troops to fully provide the 40,000 troops that were requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal several months ago. In total, if these reports are true, the President will have more than doubled our troop presence in Afghanistan since the start of his Presidency. This is very consistent with his campaign rhetoric about this being a "war of necessity" and that Iraq took our eyes off the ball in Afghanistan, but is also sure to infuriate the left wing in his own party, who have been calling for an accelerated withdrawal from the long conflict.

This decision, if true, continues a pattern that I first noted several months ago -- that President Obama has shown himself to be more liberal on domestic issues than many anticipated (see the stimulus plan, cap and trade and health care) but more conservative on foreign policy issues (this decision, the decision not to join the NATO alliance on banning the use of land mines, the far slower draw down in Iraq than many had hoped for or anticipated.) In both cases, he is being pretty consistent with the platform that he ran on.

I've said before on balance that I believe that we continue to have an important role in Afghanistan, but that a clear objective and exit strategy are necessary with any troop escalation. Let's hope the Commander-in-Chief articulates these things with his announcement on Tuesday.

Giving Thanks

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and as I always do in this space, I'd like to note things that are worthy of Americans giving thanks for:
I'm thankful that America is still a wealthy enough nation that we can fly to see our relatives and that if we can't afford to fly that we can drive or take the train.
I'm thankful that there are still a few moderates left in American politics, in spite of the partisan divide.
While I find references to President Obama (or ex-President Bush) as Nazis in poor taste, I'm thankful that we live in a country where people have the freedom to protest in ways that I find distasteful.
I'm thankful to have a job in an economy that has 10.2% unemployment and I'm thankful that we live in a country that has a safety net if I don't have one in the future.
I'm thankful that over the past 30 years, we as a nation have increasingly embraced rather than shunned our diversity. All respect to Attorney General Eric Holder, but we are not the cowards that we once were.
I'm thankful that you are reading these words today and that you may find something that I have to say interesting, enlightening or provocative.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. May you find love and hapiness in however you celebrate it. And a special thank you to those who do not get tomorrow off -- the police officers, fire fighters, grocery store clerks, soliders and air traffic controllers who will be working on Thanksgiving, each contributing to our uniquely American way of life.

On A Personal Note

The hard drive on my computer has failed. Like a fool, I had several pieces of data, including some of my Presidential approval history that I did not have recently backed up. I will attempt to recreate those data, but there may be a delay in the ordinary weekly posting of the President's numbers. I will get this rectified as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy Thanksgiving wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

The Holdout Was Sen. Voinovich

The one Senator not voting either way on the cloture motion, as I have learned, was Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH). I'm not sure if Sen. Voinovich simply had to be absent tonight or whether his not casting a vote is any sort of political statement. I suspect the former, but don't rule out the later, as Sen. Voinovich is retiring and has been critical of fellow members of the GOP caucus for being overly partisan and obstructionist. Still, on such a critical party-line vote, it is hard to imagine he failed to show up to mark a protest. Surely he would have just voted for cloture if that had been the case.

It is irrelevant as 60 votes were required either way and the 60 of the Democratic caucus were exactly what Senator Harry Reid was able to string together.

Whether he can hold on to those 60 in the coming weeks and secure cloture on the final bill remains to be seen. But we WILL have a debate in the Senate, that's for sure.

Prepare for some more high drama in December. Have a good night.

60-39 to Proceed

The Senate has voted to invoke cloture to proceed to debate Senator Harry Reid's health care reform proposal.

The debate itself will likely take place beginning November 30th. All Democrats and Independents voted in the affirmative and all present Republicans voted in the negative. I did not catch who the 40th Republican that missed the vote was, but I will report it as soon as the Senate posts the roll call results. Other than the one GOP absence, this vote went exactly as I projected it would.

On Terror Trials in New York, The President's Slow Slide Continues, The Unemployment Gap and What It Means, Stimulus Spending Continues

Why Trials of Terrorists BELONG on U.S. Soil

The substantive controversy of the week (putting aside the talk show nonsense about Sarah Palin's legs) centered around the Justice Department's (and presumably the White House's) decision to bring accused 9/11 conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the New York area to stand trial in the Federal court system. Republicans have been unrelenting in their criticism, stating that Mohammed should be tried in the military tribunal system and not set foot on foreign soil.

The major aspects of the criticism center around:
#1 The security risk posed by having an accused terrorist on US soil -- that we would become a terrorism target by having a high-profile terrorist like Mohammed in our prison system.
#2 The risks associated with a potential acquittal -- what would we do with Mohammed if he is not convicted?
#3 The notion of conveying the "rights" of US citizens to an accused terrorist

As a longtime supporter of trying terrorists in our court system, let me address these criticisms one at a time.

On security risk:
Can anybody credibly say after 9/11 that major cities in the US are not already terrorist targets? Will terrorists wake up after Mohammed is moved and say "you know, we were going to let this whole Jihad thing go, but now that Mohammed is moved, we are going to resume the war"? It's an argument that utterly strains credibility in my mind. We can't let the threat of terrorism dictate our actions -- we should do what we think is right.

On the risk of acquittal:
This risk is real, but is no different than in any trial. The unibomber, Timothy McVeigh, the DC Sniper, Charlie Manson and many, many other simply awful people have been tried and convicted in our court system. And our system has proved time and time again that when we have sufficient evidence to earn a conviction. The notion that we somehow don't trust the system that is the underpinning of our Democracy makes no sense. Besides, it isn't like Mohammed will be walking the streets of the country if he is acquitted -- he isn't a US citizen and has no right ot be here.

On the notion of rights:
We have a trial system founded on a presumption of innocence and rules of evidence not because we believe that Americans should be afforded special rights that are given to no other humans, but because, as is stated in the Declaration of Independence, we believe that ALL are endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights. Affording the right to a fair trial to those who do not share our values will be our ultimate victory over terrorists who attempt to destroy our way of life, destroying our beliefs in the face of fear would be a victory for those terrorists.

Liberty is not without risk, but as I've often cited Benjamin Franklin as saying, those who would sacrifice liberty for a measure of security deserve neither security nor liberty. Those opposing a US trial of Mohammed are being cowardly, plain and simple. We should be strong in our values and fearless in our defense of liberty, even for those who seek to destroy it.

President Obama's Continued Downward Trend

I sound like a broken record on this topic, but President Obama's numbers continue to slide, but continue to be ever-so-slightly above his November vote totals in my aggregation of all non-partisan public opinion polls.

The last two days he has been at +7.7% and +7.8% in his approve minus disapprove, just a hair north of his +7.2% total in the November election. If the current trend continues, it is only a matter of time before he slides below that 7.2% threshold.



His monthly numbers clearly show that same trend, with the President having lost 2.7% in his numbers so far this month after three months of relatively stable numbers. He has yet to have a month where his numbers have posted a substantive gain.



All of this begs the question -- why has the President failed to hold on to the massive public goodwill that surrounded the start of his term?

There are a few reasons -- clearly all President's fall off once they actually take office, the continued highly partisan spirit in Washington has redivided the country, etc., but this ultimately comes down to the same topic: it's STILL the economy, stupid.

Unemployment at 10.2% = dropping approval ratings. So let's talk about unemployment.

There Are Two Americas -- The College Educated and Everyone Else

Now disgraced former Senator John Edwards, when he was running for President, spoke often of the "two Americas". He was speaking about the rich and the poor and the differences in their American experience. An analysis of the unemployment figures clearly shows that there ARE two Americas, but it has less to do about whether you come from wealth and more to do with educational attainment. And the differences are striking.

The latest unemployment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells the story. The overall unemployment rate is 10.2%, as has been widely reported. But it varies greatly by education attainment. Here are the rates by various educational levels:
Less Than a High School Diploma: 15.5%
High School Diploma Only: 11.2%
Some College but Less Than a Four Year Degree: 9.0%
Four Year Degree or More: 4.7%

Pretty striking, huh?

What's more, in the past year, here are the CHANGES in unemployment rate by those various educational levels:
Less Than a High School Diploma: +6.2%
High School Diploma Only: +5.3%
Some College but Less than a Four Year Degree: +4.0%
Four Year Degree or More: +1.7%

As you can see, not only were the less educated worse off to begin the recession (no great shock there) but that differential has been magnified massively over the past year. Interestingly, the four year degree number is fairly close to what is often considered full employment, with unemployment in the 3 to 5% range.

This highlights two things -- those less educated are taking the brunt of the recession as factory and service jobs disappear in a downturn and two, that we ought to be talking about making college education attainable to all Americans if we are going to solve our economic woes over the long-term.

Regrettably, we are doing the opposite, with funding for education being slashed and massive tuition hikes, highlighted in California, becoming the norm.

It is concerning well beyond the cyclical recession if we don't get more of our country more educated and more productive.

Stimulus Spending Continues

The stimulus bill still has a lot of punch yet to pack. As of this past week, recovery.gov reports:

Tax cuts: $83.8 billion spent out of $288 billion allocated (29.1%)
Spending: $136.3 billion spent out of $499 billion allocated (27.3%)
Total: $220.1 billion spent out of $787 billion allocated (28.0%)

So we are not even yet 3/10ths of the way through the stimulus spending. And every bit of it is going to be needed to maintain economic growth and stave off unemployment. You could make a strong argument that the money hasn't moved nearly fast enough, given the spiking unemployment rate. But the positive economic growth last quarter, attributed largely by all credible economists to things like cash for clunkers and the first time home buyer credit that were provisions of the stimulus bill, demonstrate that things could have been so much worse without the bill.

I'll cover the Senate Health Care vote as it happens tonight. I expect a completely party-line 60-40 vote that allows the measure to proceed, just barely, after Thanksgiving, but it certainly isn't outside the realm of possibility that a lone Democrat will defect and send Harry Reid back to the drawing board.

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Senate Showdown Looms, On the Virtues and Vices of the Fillibuster, Is the GOP Tide Coming?, Annoying Things

The Vote to Get to a Vote to Start Debate on Whether to Vote
Well, we are finally going to get this thing moving in the Senate, sort of.

Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a critical vote for Saturday night. It's a vote to begin debate. Well, not even quite that. It's a vote to end a filibuster against starting debate.

Let me try to explain. In the Senate, any member who feels like it can try to filibuster anything, with 60 votes halting a filibuster. Opponents of Senate health care legislation have made it clear that they will use ever tactic available to them to stall the process, so they are going to filibuster the motion to START debate on the health care bill. This means that Harry Reid will need 60 votes to invoke cloture (stop debate) on the motion to START debate.

It appears reasonably likely that the Democratic and Democratic-leaning Independent caucus of 60 will hold together to get the debate started. Democrats with misgivings about some of the provisions, such as Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln appear to be hinting that they will fall in line. Independent Joe Lieberman is on record saying he will vote to start debate but will oppose a final bill containing any sort of public option. It appears that there is a near zero chance of any GOP support to break the filibuster.

But, of course, this is just the start of the fun. Then, each amendment to the bill must be debated, again with the potential for a filibuster on each and every amendment. Then a filibuster will have to be broken to get to a final vote on the bill, a bill passed, the bill melded with the House bill that has already passed in conference committee and the whole elaborate dance of filibusters around starting and stopping debate will have to happen again after the final bill (presumably) passes the House.

Tired yet?

Truth is that this vote is not really all that crucial. Not breaking a filibuster doesn't kill the bill, it simply sends Reid and company back to the drawing board to try to find a new way to get 60 votes. And a win isn't that great for the DEMs either -- after all, Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Lieberman, Bayh, etc. all still have to be satisfied with the final product all while holding the liberals together.

Expect many weeks of test votes, filibuster votes and confusion to come. If Harry Reid somehow actually pulls this off, I will take back everything I've said about how ineffective a leader he is. But that's still a big "if".

Is the Filibuster a Good Thing?
It comes up almost every time power changes hands in the Senate -- a debate about the benefits and problems with the current Senate filibuster law.

First, a history lesson. The filibuster is NOT, contrary to the belief of some, a part of our constitution. Our constitution is pretty lean on specifics around the U.S. Senate. Pretty much all it says is that there will be 2 senators from each state, that senate terms will be 6 years, that Senators have to be 7-year U.S. citizens who are at least 30 years old, that the Vice-President is President of the Senate and breaks tie votes, that the Senate has power of advice and consent over appointments and is one of the two bodies that pass laws. There are a few more specifics (specifically enumerated powers, appointment by the state legislature later changed to popular election, etc.), but those are the basics. Not a word about a filibuster or super-majority.

The filibuster DOES have a long history in the Senate, which has always structured its rules to be a more conservative (in the sense of change resistant) than the House. In olden times, a real filibuster required a filibustering Senator to actually stand on the Senate floor and speak for as long as he intended to keep the filibuster up (see Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for some romanticized historical perspective.)

In 1919, in an effort to block a single rogue senator from derailing major legislation, the Senate adopted a new rule that two thirds of the Senate could vote to cut off debate from a filibustering few. In 1975, the number of votes required to kill a filibuster was reduced from two thirds to 60%, which is where it stands today.

In decades past, the filibuster was used selectively. Robert Bork was not filibustered as a nominee, nor was Clarence Thomas. Filibusters were reserved for special moments when the minority felt an imperative to obstruct.

This started to change in 1993, when the GOP staged a filibuster against President Clinton's small stimulus bill. But even the GOP of the early 90s was somewhat restrained -- they did not filibuster the Family Medical Leave Act, for instance.

When George W. Bush came to office in 2001, the filibuster became even more prevalent. Democrats started using it to block judicial nominees whose philosophy that they opposed, where the tradition had been to restrict such filibusters to judges deemed unqualified. This infuriated Republicans who threatened a "nuclear option" of completely doing away with the filibuster (although it was unclear if the vote to eliminate the filibuster, could itself be filibustered.) This talk died down after the "Gang of 7" moderate Senators, including then-moderate John McCain brokered a deal to let some nominations through and let other filibusters stand.

But 2009 has ushered in a new era for the filibuster. The GOP has used the filibuster more this year than in any previous congressional year, attempting filibusters on virtually every piece of legislation and every nomination that they oppose.

Clearly there is plenty of blame to go around between the parties for the rampant use of the filibuster as we see it today. But that is hardly the question. The question is -- is the filibuster today a good thing or a bad thing?

Predictably, the party in power (the Democrats) think it is not and the party out of power (the GOP) defends it vigorously. It should be noted that these are the exact opposite of the party positions eight years ago.

For my money, I think the presence of a filibuster is an important thing. Unchecked change with one party in power, although they are democratically elected, is dangerous. Besides, the DEMs have the votes, in theory to break a filibuster, they just need to hold together their own caucus. If they can't even do that, how sorry for them can I feel if their own members vote to filibuster their legislation?

The rampant use of the filibuster is out of control, to be sure. But even in the good old days, universal healthcare would be a filibuster-worthy subject.

So, here's what I would propose:
First, eliminate the filibuster on STARTING debate on a bill and on amendments but allow a filibuster on final passage. Surely, forbidding debate can't be in the interest of careful deliberation, but blocking a bad piece of legislation could be.

Second, how about Harry Reid requiring that if the GOP is going to filibuster that they actually occupy the floor and talk like old times? I think it would be worth bringing the Senate to a halt for a while to see what was really going on. Keep the Senate floor open 24/7. If they aren't going to play ball, don't just run and hide.

Regardless of what I think, the filibuster is almost surely here to stay. Let's see what happens tomorrow night.

GOP Tidal Wave in 2010?

As President Obama's approval numbers continue their gradual decline (new numbers again next blog), more Americans begin to blame the Democrats (as opposed to President Bush) for our economic woes and the right continues to get fired up, is it possible we will see a much more massive GOP sweep in 2010 than I have been projecting?

It's early to say, but I'm beginning to become a believer. As I've said, the most important metric to watch is not the polls, but the unemployment rate. If it starts dropping by early next year and dips down significantly by November, we could see a ho-hum mid-term with little change. If it is still double digits come November, prepare for a "throw out the bums" bloodbath. And the Democrats being in power, makes them the "bums", in case that wasn't clear.

Things Annoying Me This Week
Haven't done this in a while, so here are my awards for really annoying people and things:
(1) To the media for paying more attention to former Governor now sideshow freak Sarah Palin than to serious members of the GOP like Lindsey Graham and Tim Pawlenty.
(2) To the media again for paying more attention to a bow than to the fact that we are in hock to the Chinese for billions and getting worse. I mean, seriously, who on Earth cares about a bow?
(3) To Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for saying that any major piece of legislation must be terrible if it doesn't get 70 to 80 votes in the Senate. I guess he thinks the founding fathers were idiots for not requiring a 71 vote majority for passing, oh, say, the BUSH TAX CUTS....hmmm...maybe he has a point.

Oh well...if politicians and reporters weren't annoying than they wouldn't be politicians and reporters.

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