By Dave Andrusko
Pro-Abortion President Barack Obama
I remember like it was yesterday how staggered I was election night 2000 when—like almost all of the reporters on network television—it dawned on me that the state of Florida is not entirely in one time zone. That meant that when the “results” were in for Florida, the complete results weren’t. Part of the state had not closed its polling booths yet. As you remember President Bush won the state—and therefore the election—by the narrowest of margins.
It’s not exactly a shocker on the same scale, but another example of what ought to be obvious that we tend to forget is that almost all presidential polls are national polls. And as Josh Kraushaar point out in the National Journal, ”The race for president isn’t a national contest. It’s a state-by-state battle to cobble an electoral vote majority. So while the national polls are useful in gauging the president’s popularity, the more instructive numbers are those from the battlegrounds.”
It’s near the end of the day and time to post National Right to Life News Today for Wednesday. So let me point you to his story (www.nationaljournal.com//member/daily/latest-am-20110727?print=true) and make two quick observations, based on Kraushaar’s “Against the Grain” column.
President Obama’s job approval ratings—if not in the tank—are rapidly heading that way. They run the spectrum from 47% (Washington Post/ABC News) to 42% (Gallup) “with every survey showing him with higher unfavorables than favorable.”
But Kraushaar’s thesis is when it comes to the “battleground” states, “Those polls are even more ominous for the president. In every reputable battleground state poll conducted over the past month, Obama’s support is weak.” He is fighting to retain states Obama carried in 2008, including states that are traditionally friendly to Democrats. Rather than being in an offensive posture, Obama is clearly on the defensive.
In addition, although Kraushaar makes this point almost in passing, President Obama is notoriously thin-skinned. He does not like to be disagreed with, or even questioned. Given the state of affairs, like all the major players in Washington, Obama will come under tremendously close scrutiny not just in the next month or two but all the way until November 6, 2012. That does not bode well for a man who wears his arrogance on his sleeve.
Take five minutes and go to www.nationaljournal.com//member/daily/latest-am-20110727?print=true.
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