Plan B Forum

Poll after poll has charted President Obama’s dipping approval rating in recent months, but Wednesday brought perhaps the cruelest cut to date: A new Quinnipiac University survey found that voters rate Mr. Obama as the country’s worst president since World War II.

With Mr. Obama deploying troops to Iraq, failing to find compromise with Congress and seeing major defeats in the Supreme Court, voters continue to sour on him. The new poll also revealed that more voters now say GOP nominee Mitt Romney would have been a better choice in 2012.

Quinnipiac found 45 percent of voters say the country would have been better off if Mr. Romney had been elected, while just 38 percent say Mr. Obama remains a better choice. Even Democrats aren’t so sure — just 74 percent of them told the pollsters Mr. Obama was clearly the better pick in the last election.

Voters also rated the man who swept into office in 2009 with a promise of “hope and change” as worse than even his predecessor, Republican President George W. Bush, who left office with terrible approval ratings.

“Over the span of 69 years of American history and 12 presidencies, President Barack Obama finds himself with President George W. Bush at the bottom of the popularity barrel,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

A Zogby Analytics Poll released Wednesday also found Mr. Obama slipping — in that survey, to 44 percent approval, while his disapproval jumped 4 percentage points from last month to reach 54 percent.

Nearly half of voters told the Zogby poll that Mr. Obama is “unable to lead the country.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Mr. Obama still has the ability to lead America, whatever the polls say.

“There’s no doubt the president has the leadership and stature necessary to call upon the American public to rally around the kinds of ideas that are in the best interests of the country,” he said.

But in his sixth year in office, Mr. Obama has turned increasingly to executive action to attack his policy goals, thereby mocking congressional Republicans for failing to work with him. On Tuesday, he ridiculed GOP efforts to rein in his executive powers with the threat of a lawsuit.

“As long as they’re doing nothing, I’m not going to apologize for trying to do something,” Mr. Obama said.

The president said this week that Americans are “extraordinarily cynical about Washington right now,” and the Quinnipiac survey shows that assessment is hurting Mr. Obama. A full 54 percent of voters believe the Obama administration is not competent at doing its primary job of running the government.

On overall job approval, Mr. Obama is upside-down by 13 points, with only 40 percent approving and 53 percent disapproving. That’s a 5 point slide since April.

The public doesn’t trust his handling of the economy (40 percent approval) or foreign policy (37 percent approval).

As much as voters are down on President Obama, the star of former President Ronald Reagan continues to soar. The two-term California Republican was rated as the best of the 12 presidents who have served since Franklin Delano Roosevelt by 35 percent of the voters polled by Quinnipiac, just short of twice the number of second-place Bill Clinton at 18 percent. John Kennedy came in third in the “best category” at 15 percent and Mr. Obama was fourth at 8 percent. No other chief executive got above 5 percent support.



Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... z36N9lKl3u

Long Run wrote:My ratings would be:

Rs
Reagan
Eisenhower
Bush Senior
Ford
Bush Two
Nixon (his severe shortcomings overwhelm the good things he did)

Ds
Truman (like Ike, too few remember his impact)
Clinton
Kennedy
Obama
Carter
Johnson (same issue as Nixon, could have been great but we are still dealing with his failures)

Sue U wrote: astronomical interest rates (by 1982, the prime rate was over 21%);

Long Run wrote:You might want to check your facts

Long Run wrote:

Sue U wrote: astronomical interest rates (by 1982, the prime rate was over 21%);

You might want to check your facts: http://www.fedprimerate.com/wall_street ... istory.htm

Highest prime rate ever = 21.5% 12/9/1980, Carter is still president (prime was 6.75% when he became president).

It gradually declined during Reagan's presidency and trended back up toward the end, but by then the economy was strong and inflation was under control (15.75 at the end of 1981, 11.5/1982, 11/1983, 10.75/1984, 9.5/1985, 7.5/1986, 8.75/1987, 10.5/1988, 10.5/1989). The high prime rate was necessary to get the high inflation under control (mainly caused by Carter's first Fed chief). I will give Carter some credit for changing course and agreeing to appoint Volcker who ran the interest rates up to fight inflation, an effort that Reagan supported as he realized the pernicious effects of high inflation.

Carter inherited the spiking high inflation of the 1970s

Jan 1, 1980 13.91%
Jan 1, 1979 9.28%
Jan 1, 1978 6.84%
Jan 1, 1977 5.22%
Jan 1, 1976 6.72%
Jan 1, 1975 11.80%
http://www.multpl.com/inflation/table

Lord Jim wrote: The reality of course is, (as opposed to the fantasy that you keep repeating) that it was Gerald Ford who inherited the "spiking high inflation of the 1970's" and it was under Gerald Ford that inflation was being brought back under control.

the closest I ever came to voting for a Republican for President was Gerald Ford against Jimmy Carter.

Lord Jim wrote:

the closest I ever came to voting for a Republican for President was Gerald Ford against Jimmy Carter.

Just think Sue...

If Ford had been re-elected in '76, Mr. Reagan would probably never have been President...

On the other hand, if Ford had won, Teddy Kennedy might have been elected in '80.