The Democrats are headed for a trying midterm election; that is, if you believe the multitude of polling in recent weeks. The big question is whether they will lose control of both chambers of Congress — as Republicans did the last time a two-term president faced his final midterm, in […] Read more »
The ‘Blame Bush’ Era May Be at an End
President George W. Bush left the White House as one of the most disliked presidents in our nation’s history. With approval ratings struggling to hit 30 percent, he was an albatross hanging over fellow Republican John McCain during the 2008 presidential election. Even four years later, as President Obama ran […] Read more »
GOP presidential race wide open; Hillary Clinton leads Jeb Bush in theoretical matchup
The 2016 Republican presidential nominating battle is shaping up as the most wide-open in a generation, with a new Washington Post-ABC News poll showing five prospective candidates within four percentage points of one another at the top and a half-dozen more in the mix. The picture is very different on […] Read more »
Groucho Marx’s Republican Party
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” —Groucho Marx In just a few words, Groucho Marx summed up the current state of the Republican Party heading into the 2016 presidential elections. Since the start of George W. Bush’s […] Read more »
SOTU bounce a myth
It’s time for my now annual reminder that no one should expect the State of the Union speech to bolster the president’s approval ratings. The SOTU bounce is largely a fiction. Attention will be properly lavished on the speech. It will articulate the administration’s goals, prioritize its efforts, give marching […] Read more »
Does Obama Have an Approval Floor?
… Needless to say, we can’t predict what will happen with Obama’s approval from here. Is the worst over for him? Will he dramatically fall off or bounce back up? Who knows? That said, it’s tempting to suggest that Obama might have an approval “floor” — basically, because of his […] Read more »