The Sunshine Empire

I was reading today that President Obama’s approval ratings have gone up to 56% after the conventional political wisdom was that the summer of town hall discontent had damaged him. Republicans everywhere were hoping for a repeat of the take down of Clinton in 1993-1994, but they should be finding out that the playing field is totally different this time around.

Republicans and conservatives have had an interesting attitude toward the President. During the 2008 Presidential election republicans tended to mock the belief in some Obama supporters that he would be able to work miracles the minute he walked into the Oval Office. Some of those beliefs on the part of Obama supporters were honestly a bit overblown. They bought in to the idea that the country’s problems were unprecedented, but that he would have them solved in months. Now it seems just 9 months into his administration the prevailing republican attitude seems to be that he is a complete failure, because he didn’t work miracles and have our unprecedented problems solved in months. They seem to be working with the same logic that they mocked during the campaign.

But the honest fact is he hasn’t solved everything, but he’s hardly had help. The majority of the fear-mongering regarding the 60 vote super majority has been shown to be wrong, because that big tent Democratic party is not going to agree with everything lockstep like past Republican 51 seat majorities have. The only thing really standing in the way of a public option are people dumb enough to feel that is a “massive” government takeover of health care, and Senate Democrats. Republicans working on the old playbook of 1994 fail to understand that political support is not always a zero sum game. The loss of support for congressional Democrats during the August recess did not result in any substantive political gains for congressional Republicans. For all those who cheer every time President Obama loses a percentage point of support, that effort is not making anyone take Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin any more seriously. As damaged as you make President Obama politically, there is still no serious Republican candidate that could take him on right now. But that could always change.