Obama Weakness Haunts Democrat Candidates Like the Ghost of Christmas Past

Karl Rove has been a keen observer of Washington politics for many years. His latest Wall Street Journal column today takes a history-based look at the November mid-term congressional elections from the viewpoint of the popularity of the sitting President. Rove observes that, based on recent opinion polls, public support for President Obama "is tanking on multiple fronts, dragging down his party." According to Rove, foreign policy was a relative strength for Obama during his first term, but, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that Obama has a 53% disapproval rating on his handling of foreign affairs, the worst rating of his presidency. Rove says that this number has undoubtedly grown since the poll was conducted 11 days ago - before Vladimir Putin's public humiliation of President Obama's weak reaction to Putin's takeover of Crimea. "No modern American President has been exposed as this feckless and impotent, except for perhaps Jimmy Carter," according to Rove, who concludes that once a President is seen as weak in the area of foreign affairs, it is virtually impossible to reconstruct his image, and that weakness generally means bad things for his party : "Once a president is seen as weak in foreign affairs, it colors perceptions of his leadership at home. Not that the news at home is good," Rove writes, citing a March 9 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that showed Obama with a 41% approval rating and a 56% disapproval rating for his handling of the economy. According to Rove, this 41% approval number is lower than all but eight of the 47 surveys this poll has made since Obama's first inaugural, and his disapproval rating is worse than all but seven others since January 2009. Then, Rove gives the historical context. When Ronald Reagan was president in March 1986, 44% of Americans rated the economy "excellent" or "good" while 16% called it "poor," according to a Money Magazine survey conducted by ABC News. Seven months later, Republicans lost eight Senate seats and five House seats in the mid-terms. In March 2006, when George W. Bush was president, 41% rated the economy "excellent" or "good" while 24% called it "poor" in an ABC News/Washington Post poll. In that year's mid-terms, Republicans lost six Senate seats and 30 House seats. The situation facing Democrats today is worse. The March 2 ABC News/Washington Post survey reported that 28% rated the economy "excellent" or "good" while 28% called it "poor." Unless the Obama economy dramatically improves, it will be politically toxic for Democrats, who can no longer rely on health care as a strength. The dreadful rollout of Obamacare left the president with a 36% approval rating and a 59% disapproval rating for his handling of health care in a March 6 Fox News poll. Rove's analysis of the Obama health care is that congressional Democrats will continue to be vulnerable on Obamacare. They are uncertain whether to embrace Obamacare enthusiasically - the advice of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - or take a "mend it, don't end it" approach - being touted by the White House and practiced by their losing candidate in the recent Florida special congressional election and by many Democratic incumbent Senators in trouble in their re-election bids. Rove calls the two approaches "pick-your-poison choice," and concludes that the only thing that could rescue Democrats is for Republican candidates to appear as advocates for the pre-Obamacare status quo. ~~~~~ But, dear readers, that is not going to happen. The outline of a GOP health care "repeal and replace" health care plan that puts personal choice at its center while providing coverage for uninsured Americans is already being developed. In other areas, President Obama's advocating a minimum-wage increase makes for good poll numbers but it is not the kind of agenda item that will fire up Democeat grassroots voters who are still looking for a job...any job...and see a higher minimum wage as making their search harder. And the President's rhetoric on income inequality, words that have not been backed up by any concrete White House proposal, is reminiscent of Huey Long and FDR's 1930s speeches meant to stir up the class-warfare needed to assure re-election during the Great Depression. The GOP will head into the mid-term campaign with an agenda that should ensure victory in November -- job creation, market-based health-care reforms, eliminating unnecessary and costly bureaucracy and regulations that hinder job creation, tax code reform aimed at simplification and freeing business to create jobs and promote growth, a balanced-budget amendment, an all-inclusive energy strategy that does not penalize America's abundant coal and offshore petroleum reserves while finally getting the Canadian-US pipeline underway, increased access to overseas markets, and 21st century jobs training. This outline must now be turned into legislative proposals to provide a unifying message that GOP candidates can personalize for their constituents. Compared to this dynamic forward-looking American agenda, Barack Obama has saddled his Democrat Party and candidates with old-deal Democrat ideas from the Huey Long era and with the spectre of his incompetence in both domestic and foreign affairs hovering over them like the Ghost of Christmas Past.