The hope that fired up the election of Barack Obama has flickered out, leaving a national mood of despair and disappointment. Americans are dispirited over how wrong things are and uncertain they can be made right again. Hope may have been a quick breakfast, but it has proved a poor supper. A year and a half ago Obama was walking on water. Today he is barely treading water. Then, his soaring rhetoric enraptured the nation. Today, his speeches cannot lift him past a 45 percent approval rating.
There is a widespread feeling that the government doesn’t work, that it is incapable of solving America’s problems. Americans are fed up with Washington, fed up with Wall Street, fed up with the necessary but ill-conceived stimulus program, fed up with the misdirected healthcare program, and with pretty much everything else. They are outraged and feel that the system is not a level playing field, but is tilted against them. The millions of unemployed feel abandoned by the president, by the Democratic Congress, and by the Republicans.
…..
Even some in Obama’s base have turned, with 17 percent of Democrats disapproving of his job performance. Even more telling is the excitement gap. Only 44 percent of those who voted for him express high interest in this year’s elections. That’s a 38-point drop from 2008. The fundamental problem is starkly simple: jobs and the deepening fear among the public that the American dream is vanishing before their eyes. The economy’s erratic improvement has helped Wall Street but has brought little support to Main Street. Some 6.8 million people have been unemployed in the last year for six months or longer.
The administration’s stimulus program, because of the way Congress put it together, has created far fewer jobs than anyone expected given the huge price tag of almost $800 billion. It was supposed to constrain unemployment at 8 percent, but the recession took the rate way above that and in the process humbled the Obama presidency. Some 25 million jobless or underemployed people now wish to work full time, but few companies are ready to hire. No speech is going to change that.
Little wonder people have come alive to the issue of excess spending with entitlements out of control as far as the eye can see. The hope was that Obama would focus on the economy and jobs. That was the number one issue for the public—not healthcare. Yet the president spent almost a year on a healthcare bill. Eighty-five percent in one poll thought the great healthcare crisis was about cost. It was and is, but the president’s bill was about extending coverage. It did nothing about the first concern and focused mostly on the second. Even worse, to win its approval he accepted the kind of scratch-my-back deal-making that suggests corruption in the political process. And as a result, Obama’s promise to change “politics as usual” disappeared.
Apparently, there is not one fucking moron capable of commenting knowledgeably on this fucking TECH BLOG about who Mort Zuckerman is? Really? Really?
Good God, chances are he’s right on in what he is saying, but no one has any intuitive shame about calling him a “speechwriter”? Wow!
[DU is not and never has been a “tech blog” — ed.]
…or calling him a “lefty” … the publisher of USNWR…. Really?! You’re calling the publisher of USNWR a “lefty?” and people here are obviously okay with that? It’s not the end of the republic, it’s just STRANGE. Such an odd justification for the idea that San Jose is just all hicks. My intuition says “no”, but… hell, maybe so.
#10 is a quality post
#31–Gildamush==when you are going to figure out this isn’t a personality blog? The teasers provided by our editors are to rile the flamers and stooges. STOP giving McCullough a sense of accomplishment. We are all trying to make him work for it and YOU are ruining it.
Focus like everyone else here on what Zucker SAID, not how many children he has or whatever else you find so endearing.
Or, you can make fun of Pedro’s donkey. It’s really your choice. You gonna blow or ride?
“Today, his speeches cannot lift him past a 45 percent approval rating.”
In other words, ahead of Ronald Reagan’s approval rating at comparable points in their first terms. Both of them started with a recession, the only difference is that this one is a whopper.
#10 Succinct. The last 30 years in a nutshell.
#36, qb,
I agree, but don’t tell the right wing nuts. They put Reagan on such a pedestal he is bigger than life.
#10, Dallas,
Very well written post. And, the more serious question, is how do we get out of this hole.
ALL of this was BEGINNING in the 1950’s, and Truly started in the 70’s.. The same people have/ARE influencing and Assisting our elected officials from 40 years ago.
#39..
There are a few easy ways to get it started, but those in CHARGE wont help.
Cut all the red tape in the IRS, and take a STRAIGHT 10% from everyone. Rich, poor, and CORP.
REQUIRE ALL persons to pay into social security.
MAke it a UNLIMITED deduction, dont TOP IT out at $5000 per year.
Make Social Sec to have a LIMITED PAY BACK. If you are getting a retirement fund, SS wont Pay until you are BELOW a certain point.
Making a company is Public knowledge, AFTER that point, its PRIVATE.. TRANSPARENT CORPS..at 1 year after occurrence, its public knowledge. Privacy extends to 1 year.
SAME with the GOV. it was BUILT to be PUBLIC, lets keep it THAT WAY.
Each company is TAXED as individual..NO DEDUCTIONS.. NO SUB corps, NO AFFILIATES..EACH fills out the Tax forms.
You CANT be the OIL corp and OWN the WHOLE thing, but tell the USA, those are from ANOTHER country, and NON-TAXED. EACh gas station is NOT part of the CORP.
NO TRANSACTION TAX. an item gets TAXED 1 time. AT PURCHASE, not the resell, and the NEXT RESELL, AND THE NEXT RESELL.
Thats how middle men get rich. Our food, is taxed May times, and many ways.
NOW the fun part.
ELECT WHO YOU WANT..
GET those that DONT WANT THE JOB, to run this country. GET those that KNOW what is going on, and SHOULD HAPPEN.
Our Government USEd to be run by FARMERS, Ranchers, WORKERS.. when they were DONE in congress, they WENT HOME and back to work.
It would be NICE, to have a Generalized TEST to run for office or Gov position. NOT just intelligence, but LEARNED knowledge and common sense and LIFE experiences.
HONEST CRITICAL
ANALYSIS from a Friend
Is the rarest gold.
I’ll walk back my earlier criticism. It was over the top. I am now of the opinion that the headline is actually funny.
With an accurate photo, the interpretation of the headline as a joke, calling out Mort’s own overreach on Fox News, is now possible.
The actual article, though, is really just a standard poll-reading piece. Seeing only the first two paragraphs leads you to believe it is an opinion or ideas piece. But it’s not, he’s really just summarizing poll data.
Agreeing or disagreeing with the article doesn’t actually appear to mean what people think it means. Mort’s main assertion is that “it’s the economy stupid” and that is a very easy thing to agree with.
It’s also easy to agree that people feel the way they feel as reflected in the polling data. But what are the underlying, systemic issues for which the people being polled are also part and parcel of the problem? What is going on the country that brought us to the point where John McCain (past his expiration date) and Sarah Palin was the alternate choice? At times I am bewildered that GW Bush was ever elected president, and then I remember — oh, yeah, Al Gore, then Kerry and Edwards. And there was what Rove did to McCain in South Carolina in 2000.
I think Obama is doing okay and that #36 has it right on the money.
#39 Unlike Pedro, his donkey brings up a good question – how do we get out of this. Here are a few ways but it will take time…and several concurrent non-Republican terms.
(1) Rebuild our manufacturing base. We must come up with a strategy to have not only American innovation occur here (it does) but have the product manufacturing occur here as well. Stop venture capital that does NOT have an American manufacturing component.
(2) Ween ourselves off the big middle east oil tit. We must invest and lead in clean energy technologies develop it here and manufacture it here. The government can help with this scale.
(3) Stop being a world empire and spending $600B per year maintaining it. Nobody is going to invade the US and we’ve seen enough air shows.
(4) Incentive strategy for Americans to buy American. Ween Americans off the Walmart tit or FORCE Walmart to place giant tags on their cheap shit saying ” This product produced was made in China that could have been made by your unemployed neighbor”
So there are FOUR good starts
#45 pedro, Dallas’s ideas sound good to me – they appear to directly address some of the US economy’s worst problems. What do you suggest instead?
“Even worse, to win its approval he accepted the kind of scratch-my-back deal-making that suggests corruption in the political process. ”
Suggests? SUGGESTS?
Obama’s attitude towards corruption is the same as a fish’s attitude towards water.
If we EVER elect a man from Chicago president again…. What can I say?
Death is Nature’s cure for stupidity.
Here is one great political/persuasion speech – Mayor Bloomberg’s Aug. 3 speech on the Ground Zero mosque vote. Here’s my take on the techniques Bloomberg and his team employed to make this perhaps his most memorable speech of his tenure:
http://bravospeeches.com/2010/08/14/speech-techniques-in-bloombergs-august-3-2010-speech-on-the-ground-zero-mosque-vote/