America ♥ Obama
I’m sure this means something. Maybe many things. I’m just not exactly sure what:
President Obama’s approval rating is at its highest level in more than five years, an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Sunday shows.
According to the results of the survey, conducted in the aftermath of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., two weeks ago, 56 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s handling of his job as president, compared to 41 percent who disapprove…
And according to that survey, also conducted in the wake of the nightclub massacre, Obama “ranks as the most positively viewed recent second term president.”
One thing I think it means is that in comparison to both Hillary and Trump, Obama starts looking better to a lot of people. Especially ironic to me, considering that Obama paved the way for the excesses of both Trump and Hillary, and for America’s acceptance of them as candidates.
Also ironic to me considering that Obama paved for the way for the rise of ISIS, which helped lead to the Orlando massacre which has apparently raised his stature in the eyes of many Americans.
And for contributions to the rise and fall of the approval ratings for any politician, there’s always cherchez la presse.
[ADDENDUM: Maybe I was being too cute in that last sentence, because a lot of people seem to not have caught what I was trying to convey. By “cherchez la presse” (a riff on this old saying) I meant to imply that (a) press coverage influences people’s opinions; and (b) the poll being reported on was commissioned by the press and therefore may have been designed to get a certain result.
However, I want to add a caveat to (b), which is that I think we are generally much too eager to dismiss poll results we don’t like with the idea that they are designed to be biased. No doubt some are, and of course polls are very imperfect instruments even when they are not purposely designed to create a certain result. But unless you can look at the poll’s actual design and convincingly point out the bias, I report on polls as though they are representing something real. In this case, for example, that would be a trend upwards for Obama’s approval rating.
I have noticed that although a lot of polls don’t predict results of elections all that well, a lot still do, and even the ones that don’t are often within the margin of error (which is usually fairly wide). This is particularly true for poll averages, which tend to be correct more often than individual polls.]
With all due respect Neo, what this means to me is anyone who publicly ascribes even a shred of credibility to an ABC News/WaPo poll finding in favor of Barry O is – to put it mildly – not burdened with an excess of skepticism. Learning that someone not of a Prog bent even reads such polls strikes me much the same as walking into a neighbor’s house and seeing he still has a black rotary-dial phone.
If the MSM did its job as required by the constitution, Obama would be under 40%.
No economic growth. Flat wages.
Free fire zone in Chicago.
Race relations at 40 year lows.
ISIS on the march. Middle East is on fire.
Millions leave their homes in the Middle East and North Africa for the West.
Iran, Russia and China now a factor.
By any objective measure, Obama is a failure.
I think it’s mainly the contrast. Obama is a narcissist, but he isn’t the kind of vulgar blowhard that Trump is. And he is deficient in principles, but he doesn’t have the kind of sleazy personal greed that causes Hillary to bend rules constantly.
ABC/Washington Post polls are highly suspect. They have Hillary with a 10 point lead over Trump, while NBC/WSJ shows Hillary with a 1 point lead over Trump. ABC’s coverage of Obama, Hillary and the democrat establishment may be the most biased in the entire MSM.
I having been traveling the past few weeks visiting relatives in Colorado three different sets of them, and a lot of these nice folk voted for Obama twice. Now I hear them speaking of their dislike of Hillary a bit more than Trump who they don’t care for in the least.
I have yet to hear a single person in Texas, where I live, Oklahoma where I have a lot of family or in Colorado where I am now, say a single good thing about Obama and I hear a lot of extreme dislike with multiple, negative adjectives.
I spoke to an old friend who is a long term Federal Employee this past week and she is counting the days which are actually several years until she can retire. She has been a professional liberal all of her life, multi-college-degrees, and she has nothing but scathing remarks about Obama and his administration.
I have no idea who is being polled but I guess we will find out about the accuracy the polls this November as this unusual bit of national drama plays itself out.
Depends on the representation of Democrats and Republicans in their sample.
– Conservative tree house
The batch of polls released today might fit for the purpose of MSM debate stage formatting, but beyond that — these are totally useless “agenda polls”.
[this was the same problem in the soviet union as morons kept believing the paper as they had nothing else, but if this was so, trump would not be here, brexit wouldnt have brexisted, and on and on]
– Conservative tree house
Push Poll
A push poll is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to manipulate or alter prospective voters’ views/beliefs under the guise of conducting an opinion poll. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll
In a push poll, large numbers of voters are contacted briefly (often for less than 60 seconds), with little or no effort made to actually collect and analyze voters’ response data.
Instead, the push poll is a form of telemarketing-based propaganda and rumor mongering, masquerading as an opinion poll. Push polls may rely on innuendo, or information gleaned from opposition research on the political opponent of the interests behind the poll.
Push polls are generally viewed as a form of negative campaigning. Indeed, the term is commonly (and confusingly) used in a broader sense to refer to legitimate polls that aim to test negative political messages. Future usage of the term will determine whether the strict or broad definition becomes the most favored definition. However, in all such polls, the pollster asks leading questions or suggestive questions that “push” the interviewee towards adopting an unfavourable response towards the political candidate in question.
The main advantage of push polls is that they are an effective way of maligning an opponent (“pushing” voters towards a predetermined point of view) while avoiding direct responsibility for the distorted or false information suggested (but not directly alleged) in the push poll. They are risky for this same reason: if credible evidence emerges that the polls were directly ordered by a campaign or candidate, it could do serious damage to that campaign. Push polls are also relatively expensive, having a far higher cost per voter than radio or television commercials.
Consequently, push polls are most used in elections with fewer voters, such as party primaries, or in close elections where a relatively small change in votes can make the difference between victory or defeat.
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Experimental research by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has established that trying to answer such questions can create confabulation in eyewitnesses.
For example, participants in an experiment may all view the same video clip of a car crash. Participants are assigned at random in one of two groups. The participants in the first group are asked “How fast was the car moving when it passed by the stop sign?” The participants in the other group are asked a similar question that does not refer to a stop sign. Later, the participants from the first group are more likely to remember seeing a stop sign in the video clip, even though there was in fact no such sign
on to the actual poll… –>
Well, only if you think of those things as problems rather than as signs that a proper reordering of humanity along more progressive lines is underway.
And in any event, even for that selfish, boundary-loving, anti-community values enemies of human progress class, things are not so objectively “bad”. Why, they have hardly begun to feel the full effects of the justice which must inevitably accompany the restructuring of their lives and ways.
” To summarize, the average wage in Michigan in 2013, adjusted for inflation using the U.S. Consumer Price Index, was 5 percent below 1969 levels. But, if you adjust for inflation using the Detroit Consumer Price Index excluding shelter, real wages in Michigan were almost 5 percent above 1969 levels. And, real average compensation per worker was 14 percent higher in 2013 than it was in 1969.
Michigan workers and their families lost ground during the first years of this century and are worse off today, despite the economic recovery since 2009, than they were in the year 2000
using any of these measures. But, I don’t think most Michigan residents are substantially poorer today than their parents and grandparents were 45 years ago.”
See! “Not substantially poorer” than their grandparents. What’s not to love?
Scott:
That’s what “cherchez la presse” refers to, among other things.
Maybe I was being a bit too subtle? A lot of people seem to have missed that. Perhaps I’ll add an addendum.
Typically, there’s a signature scandal in most presidents’ second terms. There hasn’t been one in Obama’s.
Obama’s approval rating at highest level since killing of Osama bin Laden June 26, 2016
The link leads to another page..
In new poll, support for Trump has plunged, giving Clinton a double-digit lead June 26
The link leads to another page..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/26/National-Politics/Polling/release_428.xml?tid=a_inl
Another VERY crappy poll..
1: the poll was done before Brexit: June 20-23, 2016
2: once again, no clear information as to how the poll was conducted, and how area codes (if phone) or other areas it was asked
3: It pushes the narative from end to end perfectly
4: it asks lots of questions about “registered voters” which then excludes most independents which are the big blocks that overturn elections
Some of the questions have more answers than are in the questions..
in a more valid poll or questionaire, there would be questions to establish the liars or qualify questions, which arent there, and so, allow people to just make up crap in the poll!!!!!!
An independent voter, often called an unaffiliated voter in the United States, is a voter who does not align themselves with a political party.
according to the poll there were 36% democrat, 24% republican, 33% independent
Q: (AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS WHO SUPPORT CLINTON) Do you support Clinton strongly, or somewhat?
Q: (AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS WHO SUPPORT TRUMP) Do you support Trump strongly, or somewhat?
why did they add the (among registered voters) part on some questions but not others?
why did they cut out people from some questions and not others if the poll was designed to measure not push?
i did get some results for:
Q: (AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS) If the presidential election were being held today and the candidates were (Hillary Clinton, the Democrat) and (Donald Trump, the Republican), for whom would you vote?
with registered voters it was clinton 51%, and Trump 39%, and no information on how they aligned the two different quantities of party…
then the fun part, if you select just republican, democrat, or independent.. you get
Clinton 90% (of dems)
Trump 77% (of republicans)
with 43% of independents going to clinton, and 45% going to trump
the problem i have is that we dont know how they got their numbers and they are not going to tell us why they chose to phrase things that way, since the primaries with only registered voters is over… why they think a poll done before brexit would be the same information post brexit..
if there were 10000 people polled…
36% democrat = 3600
24% republican = 2400
33% independent = 3300
9300 total (we dont know how many are registered, or said they were republican but not registered)
by saying registered voters you got rid of the large group that was favoring trump…
and if you look at the article that leads to the article that leads to the poll, they dont seem to mention how it was made, why they skewed things like that post primary where eeryone votes, or how they determined registered, how they selected the area codes, or did they use cell phones vs landlines…
all of which give different numbers.
the bottom line is, given the way this was constructed would you bet your life (or freedom) on the polls accuracy?
oh… and even more interesting, they never asked if the person changed parties for this election as lots of dems have registered as republicans, and so on…
so if you have a lifetime tem, that registered as a republican, are they a registered republican, a registered dem, a rino, or what?
so this is all idiocy to even discuss it..
Top Republican and Democratic zip codes in the Bay Area
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Top-Republican-and-Democratic-zip-codes-in-the-6847673.php
match zip codes and area codes and voila, you can have any result you want and still pick numbers randomly…
unlike real science or polls methodology and so on are omitted… its a joke… or rather a push poll, and its a waste of time to use polls that are designed to get you to change your mind and not designed to reveal facts or insights.
With a Republican population of 63.8%, according to 2012 Gallup polling data, Utah is the reddest state in the nation
Area codes 801 and 385 are for salt lake, and if you decide to do a poll, and want more dems and such, just select those two and then randomly take numbers… you can then insure you get mostly dem views, and can claim the poll is random.
Scott,
We still have a black rotary dial phone. It hangs on the kitchen wall, and has better sound clarity than our other landline phone, or our cell phones. 😉
There are many issues that go into creating a poll that achieves an accurate snapshot of public opinion. Without knowing the way the poll is worded, the spread of political affiliations of the contacts, and of course the size of the poll, it is impossible to know how accurate the poll may be. In this particular case, I am not interested in seeking the details.
Acquaintances who are straight ticket dem voters have become ever more disturbed with bho starting not long after his reelection. And, among my acquaintances hrc apparently leaves a bad taste on the tongue. The bern had their blessings because they think he is honest and consistent. I agree that he is more or less consistent than many politicians and leave it at that..
As the end of Obama’s presidency nears, we will see a powerful nostalgia overwhelm popular culture. It will manifest as an attempt to reminisce or re-live the cultural groundswell of the “Hope and Change” election, and consequently attempt, at every opportunity, to spin the failures of the Obama era into the successes of a cultural phenomenon. Chasing the memory of the Obama high, so to speak, we will be treated with a crescendo of narcissistic self-soothing that challenges the master himself in its utter petulance.
I’m tuning out..
Perhaps you should have alluded to Churchy LaFemme.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)
37% of the sample were registered Democrats, 27% registered Republicans. 10 point gap. It’s always easier for the media to get the results it wants when it over samples Dems.
Cornhead:
“ISIS on the march. Middle East is on fire.”
To effectively render this point politically in the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist, the prerequisite is establishing the foundation for it with President Bush’s decision for Operation Iraqi Freedom was correct on the law and facts. Then construct your case on that foundation in proper frame.
I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the results of this poll. As I listened to Sanders supporters, and as I listen to the sore losers in the Brexit referendum, there are a lot of people who really are this stupid.
Yes, I know the sore losers were on the losing side of the Brexit question. But barely, and a lot of the those whining about how irrationally afraid they are of the future unless they are ruled by unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels were too lazy to vote.
And why would they vote? The EU system of rule-by-experts-from-afar that they prefer to self-government entirely rejects the notion that it derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. As does Barack Obama and indeed the entire Democratic party.
The experts in Brussels promise them a bright future. Barack Obama promises to keep them safe. The fact that the evidence points entirely in the opposite direction (the entire federal government law enforcement and security apparatus can’t even keep track of one dead terrorists wife and, based on her reported statements, accomplice) doesn’t even dent their faith in the emotionally appealing promise of security.
The sort of people who put their faith in weepy candlelight vigils and Barack Obama to keep them safe from the terrorism that one dare not speak its name may yet prove to be in the majority.
It could very well be a bent statistical sampling. I wouldn’t be surprised; progs gonna prog. Day after day, tediously onward! But I also think that even now people want to believe in the Dream, that they’re better than the rest of us because they voted for Obama (whatever that represents to them). Unlike most pols who sell themselves based on a plan or a goal or a set of principles, Obama sold himself on an aspiration of being, somehow, ineffably, superior. People don’t want to let that go so they can’t admit that he’s been an abject ruinous failure. They give Obama a break because they’re giving themselves a break.
It’s very very very personal for these poor sad puppets.
Politics is personal for them. (All evidence to the contrary.)
They’ve internalized this message to the point that common sense no longer operates.
I mean really, who cries over the EU? Seriously now!
Re neo’s addendum: My problem with the polls is that the 10-20% of the undecideds can be influenced by the polls and go with a winner. Or get influenced by all the talk that Trump is a bigot. It works.
I remain hopeful because the UK polls were wrong on Remain-Leave and the big Midwest industrial states might go Trump. IA MN WI MI OH PA.
About that 56% approval for Obama — the poll broke it down into “strongly approve” at 34% and “somewhat approve” at 21%. That seems a pretty high degree of wobbliness.
Ann:
That is standard for presidential approval polls. That’s the way it’s almost always done. The thing about polls is that they show trends, and if you’re comparing apples to apples (the same type of measurement each time) you see a trend. For Obama right now, the trend seems to be up.
I have to comment and say that many of my Obama voting friends, who grew disenchanted with him midway (not enough to vote for Romney, but disenchanted nonetheless) are suddenly infatuated again. On FB they post an article or something about him and write things like “sigh… gonna miss this president SOOO much.” I believe the poll.
Americans have notoriously short memories, sadly.