..the socialist perspective..
"...According to New York Times columnist David Brooks, no newly elected American president has ever seen such a rapid and steep decline in the polls. Much of the media, including Brooks, ascribe the fall to the president’s supposed embrace of liberal reformism. The US News & World Report, for example, headlined their report on the approval figures, “Poll: Democrats’ Hard Left Agenda Driving Away Independents.”
In reality, the mounting political crisis facing the administration is the result of its continuation and intensification of the pro-business and militarist policies of Obama’s Republican predecessor, which were repudiated by American voters in the 2008 elections.
Obama’s right-wing policies have alienated wide layers of the population that previously backed him. Zogby noted that the sharpest decline in support occurred among 18 to 29-year-olds, where Obama’s approval ratings have fallen 18 percentage points, from 59 percent in July to 41 percent at the end of August. Support among African-American voters fell 14 points, from 83 percent in July to 74 percent last month.
Among those who call themselves Democrats, approval ratings have fallen from 88 percent in July to 75 percent in August; and among those describing themselves as “liberals,” the decline has been from 95 percent to 86 percent in the same period.
While millions who voted for Obama hoped the self-declared candidate of “change” would represent a break from the Bush administration, Obama has pursued a reactionary agenda in every aspect of domestic and foreign policy.
On the economic front, the Democratic president has acted as a ruthless instrument of the financial elite, handing over trillions of dollars to the Wall Street banks and blocking the slightest restrictions on their speculative activities and massive pay packages. As a result, the share prices and profits of the banks have increased, while tens of millions of workers suffer an unrelenting assault on their jobs and living standards and the loss of their homes and life savings without the slightest relief.
A recent Gallup poll found that 83 percent of respondents said they were worried Obama’s economic measures would not work and expected the situation will only get worse. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more from a new bank bailout plan than the average taxpayer.
A major factor in the falling poll numbers this summer is Obama’s health care “reform.” The centerpiece of his domestic policy has proven to be nothing but a plan, drawn up by the health care and insurance industry, to boost corporate profits by rationing and reducing medical coverage, and paving the way for the dismantling of employer-paid benefits and Medicare and Medicaid.
A new CNN/Opinion Research Poll found that 53 percent of Americans disapprove of Obama’s handling of health care, a sharp change from March when a majority approved of the plan, largely because they thought it had something to do with extending coverage to the uninsured. Nearly half of the seniors polled by CNN said Medicare recipients would be worse off under the president’s plan.... "
more at
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/poll-s03.shtml
Comrade Stalin
Thats great.
