Obama More Popular Than His Policies; Bad News for GOP

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Newsweek

The Pew Research Center today released results from its latest survey. Your Gaggler just attended a roundtable with Pew Director and pollster extraordinaire Andrew Kohut where he discussed the major findings. The basic message is all good for Obama. For Republicans, eh, not so much. You can read the full results here, but these are a few of the highlights (apologies for the very long post, but your Gaggler loves polls):

* Obama's personal favorability ratings are higher than his job approval: 73% of Americans have a favorable impression of Obama, while 63% approve of the job he's doing as President. By contrast, Clinton and Bush had favorability ratings of 60% and 61% and job approval ratings of 55% and 56% respectively at comparable points in their presidencies.This personal popularity will probably give Obama some cover in pursuing difficult or unpopular policies.

* Pew's data confirms that there is a large partisan gap in Obama's job approval rating, but Kohut says this doesn't mean the President is a polarising figure. Obama's approval rating among Republicans is actually a little higher than Clinton's was in May 1993 - 30% for Obama, 25% for Clinton. The partisan gap is largely a result of Obama's enormous popularity amoung Democrats. Republicans are about as critical of Obama as expected, but Democrats are much more approving of him. The poll gauges the strength of the public's feelings towards Obama by asking if they approve or disapprove of his performance very strongly or not so strongly. A vast majority of Democrats (79%) say that they very strongly approve of Obama's performance. By the same measure, only 39% of Democrats very strongly approved of Clinton. Even President Bush, who was very popular with his base, doesn't match Obama's figure - 71% of Republicans strongly approved of him at the same stage in his presidency.

* Kohut noted an unusual trend in right track / wrong track numbers. Americans are becoming less satisfied with the state of the nation, but they increasingly think that the country is on the right track. This disparity is atypical, as usually those two numbers trend together. But it's good news for Obama. While people understand the seriousness of the times, they think he's leading them in the right direction. Kohut thinks the public is invested in Obama and want him to succeed, partly because the general climate is so dire.

* Those international trips have paid off: Obama's approval ratings are higher on foreign policy and terrorism than they are on domestic issues. Pew polled up until Tuesday night, so his interactions with Chavez and Ortega over the weekend don't appear to have hurt him. Fully 61% of Americans approve of Obama's performance on foreign policy and 57% on terrorism. (Only 19% of Americans think he is considering the interests of other countries too much.) The numbers dip on health care (51%), tax policy (50%) and the budget deficit (50%). On the economy, 60% of Americans think he's doing a good job, but about half the people surveyed thought it was too early to tell if his economic policies are working. Predictably, there are large partisan gaps on these issues.

* Kohut says that even 51% of Republicans believe that Obama is practicing a new approach to politics, but their approval of Republican congressional leaders is down to 28%, the lowest number for Republicans since Pew started collecting this data. Approval of Democratic Congressional leaders reached a high point in mid-March - about 20 percentage points higher than their Republican counterparts - but still less than half the country thinks they're doing a good job.

* Another problematic stat for Republicans: around 75% of Republicans say they don't know who the leader of their party is. Kohut thinks Republican leaders should be concerned about the perception that they don't have a positive message or plan for the country. They're perceived as simply being against a popular President who's trying to make change. But there is a glimmer of hope for the GOP: Kohut says the country on the whole is still somewhat conservative and many people are sympathetic to Republican concerns about spending and debt. The problem is that Republicans aren't offering a positive alternative plan. He says over two thirds of the country still put their faith in the free market, even after meltdowns and other shenanigans on Wall Street.

* Kohut points out a structural problem for Republians, given the centrist nature of the electorate. The composition of the parties has flipped in recent years, with Republicans now being the more ideological of the two. In a shrinking Republican party, the majority of members identify as conservative but only a third of Democrats call themselves liberals. This structure frees Democrats to speak to the middle without enraging their base, but constrains Republicans.

* Sadly for Joe Biden, his approval ratings have slipped 12 percent since the inauguration, with 51% of people viewing him favorably these days. That number is pretty standard for a VP, but it's gotta sting that Cheney had a 58% approval rating at around the same time.

* And now for the fun, open-ended question. Pew asked respondents for one word to describe the President. The top three responses: Intelligent, Good and Socialist. Conservatives can take some comfort from their success in ushering that third word into the top three. In September 2008, only 6 people described Obama as socialist. That number jumped to 13 in February and 20 in latest survey. Other popular words were "great", "confident", "honest" and four people told Pew the President was "awesome". In Pew's September 2008 poll, the most common description of the President by far was "inexperienced" but in the latest survey only 13 people described the President as such.