Though his media fans tell us incessantly that he is a uniquely popular president, nearly 60 million Americans voted against Obama (i.e., more than had ever voted for any presidential candidate in U.S. history other than President Bush in 2004), and the professional pollsters apparently have a very different take on America's reaction to "change."First, McCarthy doesn't seem to realize that the U.S. population actually increases as time goes on, so straight numerical comparisons, such as the one he makes between the parantheses, are useless.
Second, to address the "Obama Cratering" portion of it, Gallup's tracking of Obama's approval has him at 62-27, virtually exactly where he's been ever since the inauguration bump ended.
Third, if McCarthy feels that the fact that oh so many American voted against Obama is a statement of how much they disapprove of him, maybe he'd like to reconcile these two pieces of information: Obama received 52% of the vote in November, but now 62% of people approve of the job he's doing.
Fourth, McCarthy points to utter hack Scott Rasmussen's awful analysis in the WSJ today, where he says:
It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. [...]
Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating — which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve — is just six, his lowest rating to date.
Let's look at the argument in the first paragraph. Most people in the media hype up Obama's popularity. They then conclude that the public is confident about Obama. Except according to Scott Rasmussen, not only is this the wrong conclusion to reach, but it's (even based on the drastically aberrant 56-43 approval he cites) more likely that the public is unconfident in Obama.
Now let's look at the second item tackled. Ah, the famed "net presidential approval rating." Strongly approve minus strongly disapprove. Brilliant! Except... not. Let's face it, for all that Obama has "done," things are still looking bleak. It's going to be hard for lots of people to "strongly approve" of what he's doing given the current climate. But on the converse, it will not be hard for the Republican base to strongly disapprove, because that is their purpose in life: to laugh at Obama. And since when did approval have to be "strong" in order to qualify as, you know, approval? Rasmussen is retarded.
