Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

...a plurality of the public feels the country is on the right track.--from 17% just before the election to 48% now. This is by far Obama's greatest achievement. The right, the wingnuts and their friends the libertarians are all gnashing their teeth at this statistic. Yeah, yeah, more people lost their jobs again this month (thank you crappy economic policies of the past) and that's bad, but what is good is that people feel things will get better. There will be no grass roots revolution, no matter how many tea bags are tossed over the White House fence as long as this attitude prevails.

This is probably what frosts the right-whingers cookies the most: Obama has saved the country. And everyone knows it. No radical solutions will be sought. You can display your poutrage on the right, but our country has taken the most important step back to recovery and you are becoming more irrelevant by the minute.

[mises]

What the public feels about the direction of the country isn't necessarily an accurate indication of the actual direction of the country.

[Kuros]

[Pluto]

It's the soju. Though I will say this. Libertarians are about as relevant to the GOP as Log Cabin Republicans.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Sorry guys, but I think when someone does something great, he/she should be acknowleged for it, especially when it is something so important. The last 7-8 months have been a pretty crazy time and it's remarkable that nearly half the public has been reassured about the future even as things get worse and the other camp of political leaders has been acting like escapees from the booby hatch. Cool head, warm heart and a steady hand. That's usually a winning combination at any time, but especially these days.

Note that I didn't mention in the OP Obama's personal popularity or the difference between that number and the approval rating for his policies; I don't think those are particularly important and can change in a second. I kept the focus on people's feeling about the direction of the country on purpose. When I read the reports yesterday I was reminded of Whoopi Goldberg's comment about watching Star Trek when she was in high school. She said seeing Uhuru made her feel like black people had a future. That's insightful.

I disagree with mises' comment that 'what the public feels about the direction of the country isn't necessarily an accurate indication of the actual direction of the country'. Of course technically that's true. I'm sure the captain of the Titanic was confident right up to the moment of hitting the ice berg...and for some time after since the ship was 'unsinkable'. But you are presuming that the course is wrong. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'll risk getting all kumbaya about it and say that confidence is the bedrock of everything and that statistic is reflecting the undeniable fact that he is inspiring confidence. The abstract quality of leadership can't really be measured in statistics, but it can't be ignored or be dismissed. Obama's got it, in spades. ( )

[ManintheMiddle]

YaTa Boy boasted:

[Ya-ta Boy]

[IMF crisis]

The OP is a joke, right? Shortly after the election of a new president, about the same percentage of people who voted for said president feel the country is headed in the right direction. Who could have seen that coming?

[Fox]

[mole]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Ya-ta Boy]

Richard Wolffe has some insight on this topic:

"Of all the measures of the first 100 days�the legislation and the spending�few mean quite as much to Obama�s aides as the dramatic turnaround in the mood of the country. An Associated Press poll last week showed a plurality believed the country was on the right track for the first time since January 2004, soon after the capture of Saddam Hussein. The only other time President Bush saw such numbers was in the months after 9/11. President Clinton enjoyed something similar at the end of his second term, at a time of peace of bubble-inflated prosperity.

The newly happy mood should translate into economic confidence, but instead it barely translates into political confidence. The reason: The bulk of those right-track numbers come from elated Democrats. More than 70 percent of them say the country is headed in the right direction.

The gap with Republicans suggests there are indeed, as John Edwards used to say, two Americas: just 10 percent of GOP voters think the same. More troubling for the White House: Independent voters, at 17 percent, are closer to Republicans than Democrats on the same question.

The teabag parties are easy to ridicule and the attempt to caricature Obama as a socialist is unhinged. But they illustrate a fringy sentiment to popular Republican thinking that threatens to make it almost impossible for the White House to communicate with those voters.

�You�re seeing significant movement among independents,� insists Axelrod. �But I think the fact that we�ve gone from 18 percent right-track in November to a positive direction now, regardless of the composition, is important. I think there are tangible things that must be done to move the country forward, but the sense of progress and possibility and hope is also important in terms of moving forward and getting from where we are to where we need to be.�

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-26/selling-the-100-days/2/

Naturally your supporters are going to come on board sooner than the congenital nay-sayers. That step has been accomplished. The next step is working on the genuine Independents. The anti-government independents and the hysterical Right are beyond anyone's reach.

Those who said the Election of '08 was a realigning election are increasingly looking like they were correct.

[Underwaterbob]

[Kuros]

[Ya-ta Boy]