WASHINGTON POST
An economy on the mend hasn't convinced the public that President Obama is doing a good job.
Obama's plight was reinforced by a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week. Signs of economic recovery, that Americans say they feel, have done little to boost the president's approval rating, which is ... an unimpressive 43 percent in the new poll, with 55 percent of adults saying they disapprove of the job he is doing.
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Why wouldn't positive signs on the issue Obama campaigned on and made a centerpiece of his agenda boost the public's opinion of him? There are a few plausible reasons. [Chris Cillizza, Washington Post: points them out:
Edward Snowden’s leaks of scads of classified materials detailing the vastness of the National Security Agency’s spying operation not only put Obama on his heels for months but badly damaged his credibility with U.S. allies such as Germany and Brazil.
And then there was the Affordable Care Act, the single biggest achievement of the president’s five years in office. The rollout of the federal health insurance exchange, one of the law’s key elements, was a complete failure — even though we didn’t realize it until Republicans reversed course on their own massive political flub and reopened the federal government after a 16-day shutdown. (The GOP’s lack of any coherent strategy may have been the only silver lining in Obama’s year.) On top of that, Obama’s oft-repeated pledge that “if you like your insurance, you can keep it” wasn’t, well, true — Politifact even deemed it the “Lie of the Year.” He later made a public apology.
Obama got some good news earlier this month in the form of a monthly report that showed the U.S. economy grew by more than 200,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in five years. The boost continued months of solid gains – gains that have done little to reverse the views of a public that has soured on the president.
So what's going on here? Why isn't encouraging economic news lifting Obama's approval rating? There are a few likely explanations.
First, [see above analysis ]
Second, while Americans indeed see a recovery, they don't see a very robust one. Only a quarter of those who feel a recovery say it’s been a strong rebound – 15 percent of the overall public – while 44 percent say it’s been weak.
This tepid assessment could also explain Obama’s low approval rating on the issue of the economy, specifically. It’s also supported by the reality of an unemployment rate that while declining, is still above pre-recession levels in the early and middle parts of the last decade.
A third reason is that Americans' interpretations of the economy – and Obama’s role in it -- are consistently colored by political biases. Three quarters of Democrats (75 percent) say they feel the economy has begun to recover, compared with only 47 percent of Republicans, a perception divide that has existed since 2009 on this question (and before then on others).